Court of First Instance: opportunity to give decisions in cases when constituted by a single Judge

PURPOSE: to enable the Court of First Instance to give decisions in cases when constituted by a single judge. COMMUNITY MEASURE: Council Decision 1999/291/EC, ECSC, Euratom amending Decision 88/591/ECSC, EEC, Euratom establishing a Court of First Instance of the European Communities to enable it to give decisions in cases when constituted by a single judge. CONTENT: Following the application of the 1993 Council Regulation on the Community trade mark, in particular, the workload of the Court, which has already considerably increased since its creation, is expected to rise significantly as a result of litigation relating to intellectual property rights. Before contemplating any increase in the number of the Members of the Court of First Instance, it is considered necessary to exhaust all the possibilities of improving the working efficiency of the Court as composed at present. By conferring on a single judge jurisdiction to give decisions in certain cases, the number of cases heard by the Court may be considerably increased. Furthermore, experience would appear to show that neither the legal nor factual difficulty of certain cases coming before the Court, nor their importance, nor any special circumstance justify those cases being heard by three judges. For these reasons, Article 2(4) of Decision 88/591 is amended by the addition of the words 'or be constituted by a single judge' shall be added at the end of the third sentence. ENTRY INTO FORCE: 16.O5.1999.�