Judgment_paragraph 87 · International Express Carriers Conference (IECC) v Commission of the European Communities, La Poste, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and The Post Office (C-449/98 P)

87Furthermore, in the context of an application for annulment under Article 173 of the Treaty the legality of a Community measure must be assessed on the basis of the facts and the law as they stood at the time when the measure was adopted (see Joined Cases 15/76 and 16/76 France v Commission [1979] ECR 321, paragraph 7), and cannot depend on retrospective considerations of its efficacy (see Joined Cases C-133/93, C-300/93 and C-362/93 Crispoltoni and Others [1994] ECR I-4863, paragraph 43, and Case C-375/96 Zaninotto [1998] ECR I-6629, paragraph 66).