European Union – Value added tax. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling in which it decided that art 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union had to be interpreted as not precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which permitted criminal proceedings to be brought for non-payment of VAT, after the imposition of a definitive tax penalty with respect to the same act or omission, where that penalty had been imposed on a company with legal personality, while those criminal proceedings had been brought against a natural person.