Judgment_paragraph 46 · Swissgrid AG v European Commission (C-121/23 P)

46By thus examining whether the letter at issue constitutes a decision capable of producing binding legal effects ‘vis-à-vis the [appellant]’, such as to change its legal position, the General Court incorrectly applied the criteria specific to situations in which the applicant is the addressee of the contested measure and not those applicable to situations in which, as in the present case, the applicant is not the addressee of the contested measure. In that second situation, it is sufficient to establish that that measure is intended to produce binding legal effects vis-à-vis, in particular, its addressees for it to be regarded as a measure that can form the subject matter of an action for annulment (see, to that effect, judgment of 13 October 2011, Deutsche Post and Germany v Commission, C‑463/10 P and C‑475/10 P, EU:C:2011:656, paragraph 40). By contrast, at that stage, it is not necessary to ascertain whether those legal effects are capable of affecting the interests of the applicant by bringing about a distinct change in his or her legal position, within the meaning of the case-law cited in paragraph 39 of the present judgment, since that must necessarily be ascertained, as the latter case-law states, in essence, at the stage of examining the condition laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 263 TFEU according to which a person must be directly and individually concerned by the measure he or she is challenging.

Swissgrid AG v European Commission (C-121/23 P)

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