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Procureur du Roi v Benoît and Gustave Dassonville
ECJ
short name:	Dassonville
Submi Date:	February 8
Submit Year:	1974
Date decided:	July 11
Year decided:	1974
FullName:	Procureur du Roi v Benoît and Gustave Dassonville
CelexID:	{{{CelexID:}}}
CaseNumber:	8/74
Chamber:
Nationality:	Belgium
Procedural:
Judge Rapporteur:
JudgePresident:
Advocate General:
Instruments Cited:
Legislation Affecting:	Interprets articles 30 and 85 TEC
Keywords
Measures having equivalent effect

C-8/74. Dassonville was prosecuted by the Belgian authorities for importing Scotch whisky from the UK without a certificate of origin. In defence, Dassonville argued that by imposing a requirement to obtain such a certificate, the authorities were in breach of Art. 28 of the ECTreaty, which prevented quantitative restrictions on imported goods. Belgium argued that it was not restricting trade by imposing a particular trading requirement on an importer -- it was clear what the importer needed to do to comply with national law, and there was nothing to prevent his compliance.

However, the ECJ held that

All trading rules ... which are capable of hindering, directly or indirectly, actually or potentially, intra-community trade...

are to be construed as measures having equivalent effect to quotas. Thus it was the effect of the meausure that was important, not its purpose.