AUSTIN, Texas On January 15 the Court of Justice of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) elected Justice Carl Baudenbacher as its President. The EFTA Court is essentially competent to decide on actions by the EFTA Surveillance Authority against EFTA States for violation of the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA), on nullity actions of individuals and economic operators against the EFTA Surveillance Authority and on preliminary references from national courts of the EFTA countries parties to the EEA agreement. It consists of three judges and six ad hoc-judges from its Member States Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The case law of the EFTA Court may influence the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities.
President Carl Baudenbacher was born in 1947 in Basle (Switzerland).
Since 1987 he holds the chair of Private, Commercial and Economic
Law at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Befor
that, he was a Professor in Germany. President Baudenbacher
has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School
of Law since 1994. During the EEA negotiations, he acted as
an Advisor of the Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein
in European law matters. 1994-95 Baudenbacher was a Member
of the Supreme Court of Liechtenstein. In 1995 he was appointed
as a Justice of the EFTA Court.