Order of the Vice-President of the Court of 14 July 2026.#VOICE – Bundesverband der IT-Anwender eV v Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) and European Commission.#Appeal – Action for annulment – Application to intervene – Admissibility of the request – Time limit for lodging – Method for calculating the time limit – Publication in the Official Journal of the European Union – Extension of the time limit on account of distance – Out of time – Effective judicial protection – Principle of equal treatment.#Case C-111/26 P(I).

ORDER OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COURT

14 July 2026 (*)

( Appeal – Action for annulment – Application to intervene – Admissibility of the request – Time limit for lodging – Method for calculating the time limit – Publication in the Official Journal of the European Union – Extension of the time limit on account of distance – Out of time – Effective judicial protection – Principle of equal treatment )

In Case C‑111/26 P(I),

APPEAL under the second paragraph of Article 57 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 19 February 2026,

VOICE – Bundesverband der IT-Anwender eV, established in Berlin (Germany), represented by J. Aatz, F. Hack, L. Hauser and T. Knapowski, Rechtsanwälte,

appellant,

the other parties to the proceedings being:

Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), established in Brussels (Belgium),

applicant at first instance,

European Commission, represented by P. Berghe, M. Domecq and I. Naglis, acting as Agents,

defendant at first instance,

THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COURT,

after hearing the Advocate General, M. Szpunar,

makes the following

Order

1        By its appeal, VOICE – Bundesverband der IT-Anwender eV (‘VOICE’) seeks to have set aside the order of the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court of the European Union of 3 February 2026, CISPE v Commission (T‑503/25, ‘the order under appeal’, EU:T:2026:105), by which the General Court dismissed VOICE’s application to intervene in support of the form of order sought by Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), the applicant at first instance in Case T‑503/25.

 The background to the dispute, the proceedings before the General Court and the order under appeal

2        By application lodged at the Registry of the General Court on 23 July 2025, CISPE brought, under Article 263 TFEU, an action for annulment of Commission Decision C(2023) 4654 final of 12 July 2023 declaring a concentration to be compatible with the internal market and the EEA agreement (Case M.10806 – Broadcom/VMware).

3        The notice provided for in Article 79 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, indicating the date of lodging of that application, the names of the main parties, the form of order sought in that application and the pleas in law and the main arguments, was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 15 September 2025.

4        By document lodged at the General Court Registry on 7 November 2025, VOICE sought leave to intervene in support of the form of order sought by CISPE.

5        By the order under appeal, the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court dismissed that application to intervene.

6        In paragraph 4 of that order, the President found that the application to intervene was out of time, since the period of six weeks referred to in Article 143(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, as extended on account of distance by a single period of 10 days under Article 60 thereof and calculated, in accordance with Article 58 of those rules, from the publication, on 15 September 2025, of the notice referred to in Article 79 of the Rules of Procedure, expired on 6 November 2025.

7        In paragraph 5 of that order, the President held that VOICE had not pleaded the existence of unforeseeable circumstances or force majeure, such as would permit the General Court to derogate from that time limit pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 45 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, applicable to the procedure before the General Court by virtue of Article 53 thereof.

 Forms of order sought by the parties

8        By its appeal, VOICE claims that the Court of Justice should:

–        set aside the order under appeal;

–        refer the case back to the General Court for a decision on the application for leave to intervene; and

–        order the European Commission to pay the costs.

9        The Commission contends that the Court of Justice should:

–        dismiss the appeal; and

–        order VOICE to pay the costs.

 The appeal

10      VOICE raises three grounds in support of its appeal. The first ground of appeal alleges an error of law in the application of Article 58 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court. The second ground of appeal alleges an infringement of the right to effective judicial protection. The third ground of appeal alleges an error of law and breach of the principle of equality before the law resulting from the fact that the additional time limit of 14 days provided for in Article 59 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court for initiating proceedings against a measure adopted by an institution published in the Official Journal of the European Union was not applied to its application for leave to intervene.

 The first ground of appeal

 Arguments

11      By its first ground of appeal, VOICE submits, in essence, that the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court erred in law in the application of Article 58(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure of that court, which includes an express rule for the general calculation of time limits and clearly excludes from the calculation the day of the event triggering the time limit.

12      In the present case, as regards a publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, VOICE submits that the time limit should have started to run not from the day after, but two days after, that publication. It infers from this that the time limit expired on Tuesday 7 November 2025 and that its application to intervene was not therefore out of time.

13      The Commission contends, in essence, that that argument is unfounded.

 Assessment

14      Under Article 58(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, where a time limit expressed in days, weeks, months or years is to be calculated from the moment at which an event occurs or an action takes place, the day during which that event occurs or that action takes place is not to be counted as falling within the time limit.

15      Article 58(1)(b) of those rules states that a time limit expressed in weeks, months or years is to end with the expiry of whichever day in the last week, month or year is the same day of the week, or falls on the same date, as the day during which the event or action from which the time limit is to be calculated occurred or took place.

16      According to settled case-law, Article 58(1)(a) and Article 58(1)(b) of those rules of procedure set out, in a consistent manner, the rules defining, respectively, the date on which a procedural time limit starts to run and the date on which such a time limit ends (order of the Vice-President of the Court of 17 May 2022, Shanghai Panati v EUIPO, C‑103/22 P(I), EU:C:2022:399, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited).

17      It follows from point (a) of Article 58(1) that the day during which the event occurs, from which that time limit is calculated, is not counted in the time limit, with the result that the latter starts to run from the day after that event, at 00:00 and not the day after that. It also follows from point (b) of that provision that, where it is expressed in weeks, that time limit expires at the end of the same day of the week as that during which the event occurs from which the time limit is calculated.

18      The interpretation advanced by VOICE would therefore result in deferring by a day both the starting point and the end of the time limit, without there being any basis for such postponement in the wording of Article 58(1)(a) and (b) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.

19      In the present case, in accordance with Article 143(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, the application for leave to intervene had to be submitted within six weeks of the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union of the notice provided for in Article 79 of those rules.

20      Since that notice was published on Monday 15 September 2025, the six-week time limit, extended on account of distance by 10 days as provided for in Article 60 of those rules, started to run from Tuesday 16 September 2025 at 00:00 and expired on Thursday 6 November 2025 at midnight.

21      In that regard, it must be held that VOICE has not shown how the calculation performed by the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court infringes the rules for the calculation of time limits set out in Article 58(1)(a) and (b) of the Rules of Procedure of that court.

22      Since the application for leave to intervene was submitted on 7 November 2025 and VOICE did not rely on the existence of unforeseeable circumstances or force majeure within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 45 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court did not err in law in dismissing that application on the grounds that it was out of time.

23      Consequently, the first ground of appeal must be rejected as manifestly unfounded.

 The second ground of appeal

 Arguments

24      By the second ground of appeal, VOICE submits, in essence, that the interpretation of Article 58(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court adopted in the order under appeal infringes its right to effective judicial protection, as guaranteed by Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’).

25      It claims that the provisions governing access to justice and the exercise of the rights derived from EU law must be applied in such a way that the exercise of those rights is not rendered practically impossible or excessively difficult.

26      In support of that argument, VOICE relies on the case-law arising from the judgment of 26 September 2013, PPG and SNF v ECHA (C‑625/11 P, EU:C:2013:594, paragraph 33), according to which, in so far as the wording of a provision of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court may give rise to doubt, it is necessary, in the absence of any imperative reasons to the contrary, to favour an interpretation which does not result in the interested parties being time-barred and therefore depriving them of their right to resort to legal proceedings.

27      The Commission contends, in essence, that that argument is unfounded.

 Assessment

28      At the outset, it must be borne in mind that, according to settled case-law, the principle of effective judicial protection is a general principle of EU law, enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter, and that principle does not preclude the setting of a time limit for the institution of legal proceedings (see, to that effect, judgment of 19 June 2019, RF v Commission, C‑660/17 P, EU:C:2019:509, paragraphs 55 and 56 and the case-law cited).

29      In that regard, the right to effective judicial protection is in no way undermined by the strict application of the European Union’s rules on procedural time limits, which, according to settled case-law, serves the requirements of legal certainty and the need to avoid any discrimination or arbitrary treatment in the administration of justice (judgment of 19 June 2019, RF v Commission, C‑660/17 P, EU:C:2019:509, paragraph 57 and the case-law cited).

30      In the present case, in the first place, it must be stated that VOICE had the full six-week period provided for in Article 143(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, extended by 10 days as referred to in Article 60 of those rules, to submit its application for leave to intervene and that it has not demonstrated how the method for calculating that time limit could have rendered the exercise of its procedural rights practically impossible or excessively difficult.

31      In the second place, as is apparent from paragraphs 14 to 18 of the present order, the wording of Article 58(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court does not present the ambiguity alleged by VOICE, with the result that it cannot validly rely on the case-law cited in paragraph 26 of the present order.

32      Consequently, the second ground of appeal must be rejected as manifestly unfounded.

 The third ground of appeal

 Arguments

33      By the third ground of appeal, VOICE submits, in essence, that the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court erred in law by not applying, to its application to intervene, the additional time limit of 14 days provided for in Article 59 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court for initiating proceedings against a measure of an institution published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

34      By failing to extend the benefit of that additional time limit to the application to intervene, the President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court also infringed the principle of equality before the law, enshrined in Article 20 of the Charter. According to VOICE, applicants initiating proceedings against those measures, referred to in Article 59 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, and applicants for leave to intervene, are in a comparable procedural situation, since their respective time limits start to run following a publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

35      The Commission contends, in essence, that that argument is unfounded.

 Assessment

36      Under Article 59 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, where the time limit allowed for initiating proceedings against a measure adopted by an institution runs from the publication of that measure in the Official Journal of the European Union, that time limit is to be calculated, for the purposes of Article 58(1)(a) of those rules, from the end of the fourteenth day after such publication.

37      It is clear from the wording of that provision that it refers exclusively to initiating proceedings directed against a measure adopted by an institution and not to applications for leave to intervene governed by Articles 142 to 145 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court. The President of the Sixth Chamber of the General Court did not therefore err in law by not applying Article 59 to VOICE’s application to intervene.

38      Further, as is apparent from settled case-law, equality before the law, enshrined in Article 20 of the Charter, is a general principle of EU law which requires that comparable situations should not be treated differently and that different situations should not be treated in the same way, unless such different treatment is objectively justified. The requirement that situations must be comparable, for the purpose of determining whether there is a breach of the principle of equal treatment, must be assessed in the light of all the elements that characterise them (judgment of 8 March 2022, Bezirkshauptmannschaft Hartberg-Fürstenfeld (Direct effect), C‑205/20, EU:C:2022:168, paragraphs 54 and 55 and the case-law cited).

39      In the present case, pursuant to Article 142(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, the intervention is to be limited to supporting, in whole or in part, the form of order sought by one of the main parties and is not to confer the same procedural rights as those conferred on the main parties. Therefore, the applicants initiating proceedings under Article 59 of those rules of procedure and the applicants for leave to intervene are clearly not in a comparable situation as regards the rules governing the time limits applicable to them respectively. The argument alleging discrimination between those two categories of persons, summarised in paragraph 34 of the present order, is therefore irrelevant.

40      Consequently, the third ground of appeal must be rejected as being manifestly unfounded and the appeal must therefore be dismissed in its entirety as being manifestly unfounded.

 Costs

41      In accordance with Article 184(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where the appeal is unfounded, the Court is to make a decision as to costs.

42      Under Article 138(1) of those rules, which applies to the appeal procedure by virtue of Article 184(1) of those rules, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings.

43      Since the Commission has applied for VOICE to be ordered to pay the costs and the latter has been unsuccessful, it must be ordered to pay the costs.

On those grounds, the Vice-President of the Court hereby orders:

1.      The appeal is dismissed as being manifestly unfounded.

2.      VOICE – Bundesverband der IT-Anwender eV shall pay the costs.

Luxembourg, 14 July 2026.

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*      Language of the case: English.