Judicial Review of Effects-Based Economic Assessments: A Process-Oriented Approach and its Challenges

The article discusses the issue of judicial review in the context of the 'effects-based', more economic approach. The EU Courts have developed a 'process-oriented' review paradigm based on criteria outlined in Tetra Laval to address concerns about lack of review of complex assessments. This review paradigm focuses on procedural errors rather than substantive assessment errors. The scope of this 'process-oriented' review has been magnified by the demand to consider all relevant circumstances, aspects, information, and data.

The article also discusses the challenges of defining 'relevance' and dealing with incompleteness in the review process. The focus on finding errors may lead to a 'tunnel vision' that misses the full picture of the case, and the EU Courts must examine whether uncontested evidence can still sustain the substantive finding in question. The article concludes by discussing the difference between introducing new facts or grounds in the debate and being allowed to properly substantiate why the new elements provided by the applicant are either not probative or do not impact the outcome.