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inter alia
for notification and co-ordination of such activities, with
emphasis placed upon the application of comity. However, the European
Court of Justice held that the Commission had acted
ultra vires
in con-
cluding such an agreement.
256
The Agreement was re-introduced in the
Decision of the Council and the Commission of 10 April 1995, which rec-
tified certain competence problems arising as a result of the decision.
257
Nevetheless, it remains of uncertain value, not least because the question
of private law suits in the US is not dealt with. The root problems of
conflict have not been eradicated at all.
The adoption in 1992 of US legislation amending the Cuban Assets
Control Regime stimulated a
d´emarche
from the European Community
protesting against the extraterritorial application of US law,
258
as did
the adoption of the Helms-Burton Act of 1996.
259
However, the EU–US
253
CJI/SO/II/doc.67/96 rev. 5, para. 9, 23 August 1996; 35 ILM, 1996, pp. 1329, 1334. It should
be noted that under article 98 of the Charter of the OAS, Opinions of the Committee have
no binding effect.
254
Cited in Current Legal Developments, 36 ICLQ, 1987, p. 399. See also UKMIL, 56 BYIL,
1985, pp. 480–1.
255
See 30 ILM, 1991, p. 1487. See also Torremans, ‘Extraterritorial’, pp. 289 ff.
256
Case C-327/91,
French Republic
v.
Commission of the European Communities
[1994] ECR
I-3641.
257
[1995] OJ L 95/45.
258
See UKMIL, 63 BYIL, 1992, p. 725.
259
See e.g. European Commission Press Release WE 27/96, 18 July 1996 and 35 ILM, 1996,
p. 397. See also Council Regulation No. 2271/96, 36 ILM, 1997, p. 127, and the Canadian
j u r i s d i c t i o n
695
Memorandum of Understanding of 1997 provided for the continued sus-
pension by the US of Title III so long as the EU continued efforts to
promote democracy in Cuba.
260
However, the European Community itself has wrestled with the ques-
tion of exercising jurisdiction over corporations not based in the Com-
munity in the field of competition law.
261
In
ICI
v.
Commission
,
262
the
European Court of Justice established jurisdiction with regard to a series
of restrictive agreements to fix the price of dyestuffs on the ground that
the defendant undertakings had corporate subsidiaries that were based
within the Community, and declined to follow the Advocate General’s
suggestion
263
that jurisdiction should be founded upon direct and imme-
diate, reasonably foreseeable and substantial effect.
The
Wood Pulp
case
264
concerned a number of non-EC companies and
an association of US companies alleged to have entered into a price-
fixing arrangement. The European Commission had levied fines on the
jurisdictional basis that the effects of the price agreements and practices
were direct, substantial and intended within the EC.
265
An action was
then commenced before the European Court of Justice for annulment of
the Commission’s decision under article 173 of the EEC Treaty. Advocate
General Darmon argued that international law permitted a state (and
therefore the EC) to apply its competition laws to acts done by foreigners
abroad if those acts had direct, substantial and foreseeable effects within
the state concerned.
266
The Court, however, took the view that the companies concerned had
acted within the EC and were therefore subject to Community law. It
was noted that where producers from third states sell directly to pur-
chasers within the Community and engage in price competition in order
to win orders from those customers, that constitutes competition within
Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act 1996 (countering the Helms-Burton Act),
ibid.
,
p. 111.
260
36 ILM, 1997, p. 529. On 18 May 1998, the Understanding with Respect to Disciplines
for the Strengthening of Investment Protection was reached whereby the EU agreed to
suspend action in the World Trade Organisation against the extraterritorial aspects of
Helms-Burton in exchange for an EU-wide exemption by the US from the extraterritorial
elements of the Act: see UKMIL, 76 BYIL, 2006, pp. 850–1.
261
But not the UK: see e.g.
Attorney General’s Reference
(
No. 1 of 1982
) [1983] 3 WLR 72,
where the Court of Appeal refused to extend the scope of local jurisdiction over foreign
conspiracies based on the effects principle.
262
[1972] ECR 619; 48 ILR, p. 106.
263
[1972] ECR 619, 693–4.
264
A. Ahlstrom Oy
v.
Commission
[1988] 4 CMLR 901.
265
Ibid.
, p. 916.
266
Ibid.
, p. 932.
696
i n t e r nat i o na l l aw
the Community, and, where such producers sell at prices that are actually
co-ordinated, that restricts competition within the Community within
the meaning of article 85 of the EEC Treaty. It was stressed that the de-
cisive factor was the place where the price-fixing agreement was actually
implemented, not where the agreement was formulated.
267
In other words,
the Court founded its jurisdiction upon an interpretation of the territo-
riality principle, if somewhat stretched. It did not take the opportunity
presented to it by the opinion of the Advocate General of accepting the
effects principle of jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the case does appear to sug-
gest that price-fixing arrangements intended to have an effect within the
Community that are implemented there would be subject to the jurisdic-
tion of the Community, irrespective of the nationality of the companies
concerned and of the place where the agreement was reached.
268
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