THE Supreme Court yesterday upheld a decision to award Emerald Meats Ltd, a meat trading company, damages of over £400,000 because of the Department of Agriculture's failure to grant it an import licence for 177 tonnes of frozen meat from nonEU countries under a GATT agreement.
The three judges dismissed an appeal by the Minister for Agriculture, Ireland and the Attorney General and two meat processing companies, Rangeland Meats Ltd and Goldstar Meats Ltd, representative of 14 meat processing companies. They had appealed against, a 1991 High Court decision to award damages.
The Supreme Court upheld the High Court decision and also allowed Emerald Meats its cross appeal that it was entitled to general damages in addition to the award. The High Court had rejected this claim.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, after the judgment, said the Supreme Court would today hear submissions as to whether the general damages' should be assessed by that court or be sent back to the High Court.
In 1991, the High Court concluded that the Department had failed to apply provisions of article 1(1) of EC regulations and that the company failed to obtain its share of the 1990 "GATT quota" licence to which it was entitled.
The judge ordered that Emerald should recover the following sums against the Minister for Agriculture 662,926 Belgian francs, being the fees and costs which Emerald incurred in instituting proceeding before the European Court of Justice and £385,922 with interest, a total of £416,795.76.
The judge said Emerald should have obtained licences to permit the importation of 277 tonnes of GATT meat in 1990. In fact, it only obtained licences to import 100 tonnes.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Blayney, in giving judgment, said the annual quantity of frozen meat to be imported to the EC each year was the "GATT Quota". The manner in which the quota was distributed in the State was the Department of Agriculture's responsibility. It had decided the quota should be allocated among meat processors.
Emerald was a small company wholly owned by its managing director, Mr John McCarthy, except for one share owned by his wife. Emerald traded in meat but was not a meat processor. Mr McCarthy approached some of the meat processors and offered to buy the right to their quota or the GATT meat when imported. He was successful in purchasing the right to a substantial part of the Irish quota in the years 1987/88.
Mr Justice Blayney said there were three issues was Emerald the, "importer" of the GATT meat in 1987/88 if Emerald was the "importer" in those years, was there a duty on the Department to forward to the EC Commission its application for a quota of GATT meat in 1990 based on its imports if the Department was in breach of its duty, was Emerald entitled to damages?
It was submitted that the licence had been issued to Emerald for and on behalf of the particular meat processor and therefore Emerald was an agent only. Mr Justice Blayney said he was unable to accept this submission.
On the facts, he was in complete agreement with the High Court judge. It was clear that from the time the meat processor sold his quota to Emerald, the latter took over completely. The licence was obtained and the meat imported and subsequently disposed as part of Emerald's business and with no connection whatsoever with the meat processor from whom the quota was purchased.
He rejected submissions that Emerald was not the importer of the GATT meat in 1987/88. There was no doubt that the actual importation of the meat was carried out by Emerald on its own behalf and not on behalf of the meat processors and accordingly, it was not acting as an agent.
Three months after the High" Court judgment, the Commission made a new regulation which actually gave effect to the judgment. The regulation was not contested by the State or the other defendants.
Both Emerald and the meat processors claimed to the Department to be the importer. The Department, without giving Emerald any opportunity to make its case, made the wrong decision.
The Department had a duty under the regulations to furnish to the Commission the application of Emerald based on its imports in 1987/88 and in failing to do so was in breach of this duty.
It was clear from principles of law that Emerald was entitled to claim compensation from the State for the Department of Agriculture's failure to carry out the obligation imposed on it by the regulations. Emerald served a cross appeal against the decision that it was not entitled to recover general damages. He said there was no reason why the Minister should not be liable for both general and special damages.