Tag Archives: sua sponte

Joined Cases T-458/10 to T-467/10 and T-471/10 Peter McBride and others v Commission: Need for a legal base, principle of conferral

The judgment of the General Court of 13 May 2014 in Joined Cases T-458/10 to T-467/10 and T-471/10 Peter McBride and others v Commission EU:T:2014:249 illustrates a basic point: the EU institutions need an express legal base in order to adopt a measure. No legal base, no competence. That’s called the principle of conferral. It is laid down in Article 13 (2) TFEU.

By its judgment, the General Court annulled a series of Commission decisions because they lacked a legal base. The case has quite a story….. Continue reading

Cases C-132/12 P Stichting Woonpunt and C-133/12 P Stichting Woonlinie – standing – regulatory acts not entailing implementing measures – sua sponte

Here we go again…. Two more judgments of the Court of Justice on the issue of standing and the “regulatory acts which do not entail implementing measures” business in Article 263 (4), third limb, TFEU. On this, se our previous posts here, here and here.

In its judgments of 27 February 2014 in Case C-132/12 P Stichting Woonpunt and others v Commission, unpublished, and Case C-133/12 P Stichting Woonlinie and others v Commission, unpublished, the Court of Justice did two things, one of which is really interesting.

  1. First, it held that even if the plaintiffs did not meet all the conditions required for their actions to be admissible under the amendment to Article 263 (4) TFEU made by the Lisbon Treaty which relaxed the conditions of admissibility of actions for annulment brought by natural and legal persons against acts of the EU institutions, the General Court made a mistake in law by failing to examine whether they did or not. And that is an interesting insight about how that new, relaxed rule on standing should be applied.
  2. Second  – not so exciting – it held that the actions for annulment in these cases were admissible according to the traditional test of individual and direct concern in Plaumann.

Let’s see in more detail.

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