The criterion for support to the Government of Iran in Article 20(1)(c) of Decision 2010/413, as amended by Decision 2012/635, and in Article 23(2)(d) of Regulation No 267/2012, as amended by Regulation No 1263/2012, must be understood as meaning that it targets the relevant person or entity’s own activities which, even if they have no actual direct or indirect connection with nuclear proliferation, are nonetheless capable of encouraging it, by providing the Government of Iran with resources or facilities of a material, financial or logistic nature allowing it to pursue proliferation activities.

The rule that, in accordance with Article 266 TFEU, when an act is annulled or declared invalid, the institutions which adopted that act are required only to take the measures necessary in order to comply with that judgment, implies that those institutions have a broad discretion to decide the measures to be put into effect in order to remedy the illegality established, it being understood that such measures must be compatible with the operative part of the judgment in question and the grounds that constitute its essential basis.

With regard to a judgment by which the EU judicature annulled acts originally including an applicant on a list of those targeted by restrictive measures as a result of the lack of information provided by the Council in support of their factual basis, the issue whether it is still possible for the Council to re-list on the basis of reasons other than those in the annulled acts, which requires a ruling on whether the annulment judgment limits the Council’s power to adopt re-listing acts, may be assessed having regard to the principle of res judicata. By virtue of that principle, annulment judgments given by the European Union Courts have the force of res judicata as soon as they become final. This applies not only to the operative part of the judgment annulling a decision, but also to the grounds which are its essential basis and are inseparable from it. The force of res judicata extends only to the matters of fact and law actually or necessarily settled by a judicial decision. In that regard, it cannot be inferred from the finding that the Council failed to adduce sufficient information, to which the authority of res judicata extends, that the Council could not then rely on other evidence intended to attest the veracity of the reasons relied upon, or that it could never demonstrate that the appellant provides support for nuclear proliferation or helps other persons and entities to breach or avoid the restrictive measures to which they were subject.

In addition, the principle of effective judicial protection, a general principle of law, which is now reaffirmed by Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, cannot prevent the Council from reinstating a person or entity on the lists of persons and entities whose assets are to be frozen on the basis of reasons other than those on which the initial listing of that person or that entity was based. The purpose of that principle is to ensure that an act adversely affecting an entity may be challenged before the courts, and not to prevent the adoption of a new act adversely affecting that entity, based on different reasons. Consequently, where a decision of an EU institution being challenged in court is annulled, it is deemed to have never existed, and that institution, which intends to take a new decision, is entitled to undertake a full review and rely on reasons other than those on which the annulled decision was based.

(see paras 68-71, 73, 79-81)