The state did not comply with an EU ruling on internal inspection height on pig vehicles in 2011. In the eight years that passed before the rule was finally repealed, it cost the pig transporters significant losses. Now, according to the law firm Sønderby Legal, it is costing taxpayers dearly that the then-current rules were not amended in accordance with EU law, as one would expect.
Back in 2002, there was broad political focus on tightening the rules for pig vehicles, and the Minister of Justice was instructed to take action. A proposal was made for the adoption of a max. transport time of 8 hours, but as there was no majority for this, a requirement of 140 cm internal inspection height was adopted instead. Not only a significant costly change for the transporters, but also a requirement of a clearly cumbersome nature with a view to indirectly reducing the number of long transports. A clear violation of EU law.
The industry organizations Foreningen af Danske Svineproducenter (LaDS) and SamMark sued the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. Via the Western High Court, the case was presented to the European Court of Justice on two occasions, which in December 2011 overturned the rule. However, it took a good 8 years before the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration repealed the rules on 1 January 2020.
While the case was being processed at the European Court of Justice, members of LaDS and SamMark had to initiate further legal action against the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration to demand compensation for their losses and avoid the statute of limitations for their potential claims. Two companies were selected by LaDS and SamMark as front runners.
LaDS and SamMark lost in the Copenhagen City Court but have now won in the Eastern High Court, which in its judgment underlined the clearly EU-conflicting conditions in the case:
”The High Court assumes that the purpose of the rule on inspection height was to fulfil a political objective of making it more difficult and costly to meet the transport requirements in order to indirectly reduce the number of animals brought to slaughter with long-term transports…”
The judgment put an end to the case for the two companies and, for the time being, makes taxpayers a total of 8 million poorer. What remains now are the other companies behind the case, which have suffered the same loss by having to pay to install extra equipment to create inspection height in their vehicles.
The case shows that expenses for the establishment of extra height on three-story pig vehicles can be claimed according to the law firm Sønderby Legal, which has led the large case complex.
Thus, the case opens up for more transporters to make claims for compensation.