R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport
| R (Factortame Ltd) v Sec. of State for Transport | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | House of Lords, European Court of Justice |
| Full case name | R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport |
| Decided | March 1989 to November 2000 |
| Citation(s) | |
| Keywords | |
| Parliamentary sovereignty, direct effect, Common Fisheries Policy | |
R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport was a judicial review case taken against the United Kingdom government by a company of Spanish fishermen who claimed that the United Kingdom had breached European Union law by requiring ships to have a majority of British owners if they were to be registered in the UK. The case produced a number of significant judgments on British constitutional law, and was the first time courts held that they had the power to restrain the application of an Act of Parliament pending trial and ultimately to disapply that Act when it was found to be contrary to EU law.
The litigation was lengthy, and is typically divided into five main stages:
The EU's Common Fisheries Policy, which began in 1970, aimed at creating a common market for fisheries products by providing for free access to the waters of all member states and introducing structural funds to ensure modernisation of the sector. In 1976 it was agreed that, as from 1 January the following year, member states would extend their exclusive economic zone, which included the limit of their fishing zones, to a distance 200 nautical miles (370 km) from their coastlines. In 1980 the EU concluded a fisheries agreement with Spain, which did not become a member of the EU until 1985, which gave the latter (which had the largest fishing fleet in Europe) limited rights to fish in the waters of the member states. In 1983 concerns over the effect that equality of access might have on fishing stocks led to the introduction of certain controls, notably the concept of "total allowable catches" which set maximum quotas of fish which could be caught by each member state, and the British Fishing Boats Act 1983 (BFBA). In 1985, with Spanish accession, everything changed and the BFBA no longer applied to the Spanish fishermen.
From 1980, as seen earlier, Galician fishermen began to enter the UK fishing market by taking advantage of easy fishing vessel registration requirements contained in the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. Although the 1894 Act prohibited ownership of vessels by non-UK nationals, UK-domiciled companies were allowed registration as the owners. Amongst the early beneficiaries of the 1894 Act was Factortame Limited, a company whose directors were Joseph J L Couceiro, John A Couceiro and Ken L Couceiro, all Spanish nationals with Portuguese ancestry resident and domiciled in Spain. The company, together with 96 others whose directors and shareholders were mostly Spanish nationals, re-registered 53 vessels which had formerly flown the Spanish flag as British fishing vessels under the 1894 Act. They also acquired 42 existing British vessels with a view to using them in the fishing zone. Most of these vessels landed their catches in Spain, but as the fish were caught in UK waters, they counted against the UK fishing quota, a practice known as "quota hopping".
...
Wikipedia