The Court of Justice’s judgment of 3 October 2013 in Case C-583/11 P Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and others v Parliament and Council is significant in three respects.
- First it makes clear what is – or rather what is not – a regulatory act according to Article 263 paragraph 4 in fine TFEU.
- Second it refuses to change its constant case-law on what “individual concern” means according to Article 263 paragraph 4 TFEU and in particular refuses to endorse a “substantial adverse effect” test.
- Third, it reaffirms the deep attachment of the Court to the system of review of the legality of acts of the EU institutions by the courts of the Member States in cooperation with the Court of Justice via requests for preliminary rulings.
We will deal with the definition of a “regulatory act” in this post first and the other two aspects of the case in separate posts later.
In its judgment in Case C-583/11 P, the Court held that a regulation adopted by the Parliament and Council was a legislative act and thus not a “regulatory act” within the meaning of Article 263 paragraph 4 TFEU. As a consequence, individual plaintiffs who seek the annulment of such an a regulation must demonstrate that they are “directly and individually” concerned by it. And in this case, they could not. Thus, the judgment is in the same vein as in Case C-274/12 P Telefonica we posted about here.
EU litigation 