Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1999:91
Date: 1999-02-25
Language of the case: Portuguese
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: External relations;Commercial policy
Procedure: Action for annulment - successful
Origin: Portugal

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Actions for annulment — Withdrawal of the contested measure while the proceedings 
are before the Court — Where rights acquired by the intended beneficiaries are 
preserved — Whether the action is rendered devoid of purpose — Purpose subsists in 
those circumstances 
(EC Treaty, Art. 173 (now, after amendment, Art. 230 EC) 
2. Acts of the institutions — Withdrawal — Unlawful acts — Conditions — Whether the 
effects produced may be preserved — Not permissible 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-89/96 
1. An action for annulment is not ren­
dered devoid of purpose by reason of 
the partial withdrawal of the contested 
measure while the proceedings are 
before the Court, where the act of 
withdrawal specifies that it does not 
affect rights which the measure with­
drawn may have conferred on its 
intended beneficiaries. 
2. It is not open to a Community institu­
tion which has adopted a measure 
without being competent to do so to 
withdraw that measure when its legal­
ity is challenged before the Court and 
at the same time essentially to preserve 
the effects which it has produced, in 
order thereby to achieve, notwithstand­
ing the withdrawal of the illegal mea­
sure, the objective initially pursued. 
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