No derogation from the application of the Community rules on procedural time-limits may be made save where the circumstances are quite exceptional, in the sense of being unforeseeable or amounting to force majeure, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 42 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, since the strict application of those rules serves the requirements of legal certainty and the need to avoid any discrimination or arbitrary treatment in the administration of justice.

An exceptional malfunctioning of the postal services resulting in an application for annulment being out of time does not constitute such circumstances when the applicant only sent the application, albeit by express mail, the day before the expiry of the time-limit laid down, when it had a period of 10 days on account of distance calculated on the basis of the normal period for postal delivery taking into account any problems in the postal service.