Opinion of Mr advocate general Capotorti

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. The problem of the applicability to existing contracts of new Community provisions which detrimentally affect the position of one of the contracting parties has already given rise to numerous cases before the Court of Justice concerning various situations and subject-matters; the most common subject-matter is that of the Community rules relating to agriculture.

2. Between 29 September and 6 October 1976, thus both before and after the enactment by the Commission of the aforesaid Regulation No 2405/76 of 1 October which froze the monetary compensatory amounts which were already in force, the British Beef Company concluded several contracts for the sale of consignments of meat which were to be exported from the United Kingdom in the course of the week beginning 4 October. In agreeing on the prices for those consignments the said company relied on the forecasts made by the Meat and Livestock Commission (the competent national authority for meat) which were notified to it subjea to reservation by a telex message of 29 September and which were confirmed by a telex message of 1 October, according to which the aforesaid measure freezing the amounts would remain in force for the whole of that week.

3. As regards the first of those questions it is necessary to ask first whether Regulation No 2424/76 may in any way be interpreted as providing that existing contracts are excluded from the increase in the monetary compensatory amounts.

4. I shall now turn to the problem raised by the second question. It is necessary to determine whether, by failing to exempt from the increase in monetary compensatory amounts those exporters who had concluded sales contracts before the date on which the regulation in question was promulgated, the latter breached the general principle of law whereby the Community institutions must protect the legitimate expectations of the parties concerned in so far as that is compatible with the safeguarding of overriding requirements of public interest.

5. I have already emphasized that the basic provision relating to compensatory amounts (Regulation No 974/71 of the Council, Article 3) is characterized by an obligation imposed on the Commission to alter the said amounts in accordance with any currency fluctuation exceeding a specified percentage.

6. In conclusion, for the reasons set out above I propose that the Court of Justice should rule as follows in answer to the questions referred to it for a preliminary ruling by the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court, by judgment of 15 November 1977:

1 Translated from the Italian.