Order — ECLI:EU:T:2007:3
Date: 2007-01-12
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;External relations;Fruit and vegetables;Commercial policy;Bananas
Concepts: General;Applications by natural or legal persons;Right to a judicial remedy
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible

Summary of the Order 
1. Actions for annulment — Interest in bringing proceedings 
(Art. 233 EC) 
2. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual 
concern to them 
(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 2015/2005) 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-447/05 
3. European Communities — Judicial review of the legality of the acts of the institutions — 
Measures of general scope 
(Arts 230, fourth para., EC, 234 EC, 235 EC, 241 EC and 288, second para., EC) 
1. For an action for annulment brought by 
a natural or legal person to be admis­
sible, that person must have a vested and 
present interest in the annulment of the 
contested act. Such an interest is present 
only if the annulment of the measure is 
of itself capable of having legal con­
sequences, which cannot be ruled out in 
the case of a regulation which is not 
applicable to a certain category of 
economic operators established in a 
non-member country and carrying on 
no economic activity in the territory of 
the Member States. 
Under Article 233 EC the institution 
whose act has been declared void is 
required to take the necessary measures 
to comply with the judgment, which may 
lead it to take adequate steps to restore 
the applicant to its original situation or 
to avoid the adoption of an identical 
measure. 
The institution concerned is required to 
ensure that any act intended to replace 
the annulled act is not affected by the 
same irregularities as those identified in 
the judgment annulling the original act. 
Under those circumstances, the annul­
ment of an act on the ground that it does 
not take account of a specific category of 
economic operators, which requires the 
institution which adopted the act to 
adopt the measures necessary to give 
effect to the judgment, can affect the 
economic operators legal position. 
(see paras 52-54, 57, 59) 
2. The provisions of a legislative act, such 
as a regulation, applying to all economic 
operators concerned can, in certain 
circumstances, be of individual concern 
to certain of them. In those circum­
stances, a Community measure could be 
of a legislative nature and, at the same 
time, vis-à-vis some of the traders 
concerned, in the nature of a decision. 
This is not the case, however, for 
Regulation No 2015/2005 on imports 
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SPM v COMMISSION 
of bananas originating in ACP countries 
under the tariff quota opened by Regu­
lation No 1964/2005 on the tariff rates 
for bananas, during January and Febru­
ary 2006, in respect of an independent 
banana operator established in a non-
member country and carrying on no 
economic activity in the territory of the 
Member States and having no historic 
reference in regard to the Community 
rules for the importation of bananas 
applicable until 31 December 2005. 
First, that regulation concerns the appli­
cant only in its objective status as an 
undertaking which produces and mar­
kets ACP bananas, in the same way as 
any other independent operator estab­
lished in an ACP country and carrying 
on the same business; that status is not 
sufficient in itself to establish that the 
applicant is individually concerned by 
the regulation in question. Secondly, the 
possibility of determining more or less 
precisely the number, or even the 
identity, of the persons to whom a 
measure applies by no means implies 
that it must be regarded as being of 
individual concern to them as long as it 
is established that that application takes 
effect by virtue of an objective legal or 
factual situation defined by the measure 
in question. Third, the finding that the 
Commission was required, in so far as 
the circumstances of the case so per­
mitted, to take account, at the time the 
regulation in question was adopted, of 
the negative effects which it might have, 
in particular, on the undertakings con­
cerned does not discharge the applicant 
from the burden of proving that it is 
affected by the contested regulation by 
reason of a factual situation which 
differentiates it from all other persons. 
(see paras 66, 69, 71, 77) 
3. The Treaty, in Articles 230 EC and 241 
EC, on the one hand, and Article 234 
EC, on the other, established a complete 
system of legal remedies and procedures 
designed to enable the Community 
Courts to review the legality of acts of 
the institutions. Under that system, 
where natural or legal persons cannot, 
by reason of the conditions for admissi­
bility laid down in the fourth paragraph 
of Article 230 EC, directly challenge 
Community measures of general appli­
cation, they are able, depending on the 
case, either indirectly to plead the 
invalidity of such acts before the Com­
munity Courts under Article 241 EC or 
to do so before the national courts and 
ask them, since they have no jurisdiction 
themselves to declare those measures 
invalid, to make a reference to the Court 
of Justice for a preliminary ruling in this 
regard. 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-447/05 
The fact that there might be no effective 
judicial remedy does not justify a 
change, carried out by the courts, in 
the system of remedies and procedures 
provided for in those articles. The 
admissibility of an action for annulment 
before the Community Courts does not 
depend on whether there is a remedy 
before a national court enabling the 
validity of the act being challenged to 
be examined. In no event could such a 
circumstance enable an action for annul­
ment brought by a natural or legal 
person to be declared admissible where 
it did not satisfy the conditions laid 
down in the fourth paragraph of Article 
230 EC. 
Moreover, individuals are not denied 
access to justice because they are unable 
to apply for the annulment of measures 
which they contest, since an action for 
non-contractual liability under Article 
235 EC and the second paragraph of 
Article 288 EC is available if the conduct 
is of such a nature as to entail liability for 
the Community. 
(see paras 81-83) 
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