Case C-36/74 Walrave and Koch [1974] ECR 1405

Abstract

The claimants, Dutch nationals, offered their services for remuneration to act as pacemakers on motorcycles in medium distance races for participants (called “stayers”) who cycled in the lee of the motorcycle. The claimants provide their services under agreements with the stayers or the national associations or with sponsors. The first defendants, as the rule making body for the sport, and including its world championships, endorsed a regulation that provided “as from 1973 the pacemaker must be of the same nationality as the stayer”. The claimants considered this provision to be incompatible with EU law in so far as it prevented a pacemaker of one Member State from offering his services to a stayer of another Member State. The claimants brought an action against the defendant in a court in Utrecht for a declaration that the rule was void and an order that the defendants allow them to compete at the world championships. The Utrecht court took the view that questions of the interpretation of EU law arose and referred a number of questions to the European Court of Justice for preliminary ruling.