EC refers Luxembourg to the EU Court of Justice over its failure to transpose EU legislation on reducing over-reliance on credit ratings

19 November 2015

The Commission asked the Court to impose a penalty on Luxembourg until the law is fully transposed into national legislation.

EU rules on reducing over-reliance on credit ratings (Directive 2013/14/EU) should have been transposed into national law by 21 December 2014. As Luxembourg failed to transpose the Directive, the Commission sent a letter of formal notice on 29 January 2015 followed by a reasoned opinion on 19 June 2015. With no response as of yet, the Commission has now decided to refer the country to the Court of Justice of the EU. On the basis of the procedure set out in Article 260(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Commission is asking the Court to impose a penalty on Luxembourg to the amount of € 6 700 per day until the law is fully transposed into national legislation.

The penalties, which will be ultimately decided by the Court not exceeding the amount specified by the Commission, will take into account the seriousness and duration of the infringement and the deterrent effect reflected in the ability to pay of the Member State. In the present case, they consist of daily penalty payments proposed to be paid from the date of the judgment – assuming the Member State has still not completely transposed the obligations of the Directive until full transposition has been achieved.

Full press release

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