ABSTRACT
The Commission is required to propose the amount of penalty, but the ECJ is not bound by it. The amount of penalty – which may take the form of a lump sum, a daily payment or both – depends on the seriousness of the breach, the duration and the need to ensure that the penalty is a deterrent to further infringements. However, when the Commission asks for the imposition of a pecuniary penalty in its application for a fi nding of a failure to notify to it measures transposing a directive, and the ECJ fi nds that there has been an infringement, the ECJ may impose the fi nancial penalty proposed by the Commission but the amount of such penalty should not exceed that specifi ed by the Commission. The Member State concerned has an obligation to pay on the date set by the ECJ in its judgment.
