BOSPHORUS HAVA YOLLARI TURİZM VE TİCARET ANONİM ŞİRKETİ v. IRELAND JUDGMENT 33 B. The applicant company 1. Article 1 of the Convention 115. The applicant company considered that the terms of Regulation (EEC) no. 990/93 and the preliminary reference procedure admitted of State discretion for which Ireland was responsible under the Convention. It agreed that if the substance of its grievance had resulted solely from Ireland's international obligations, this Court would have had no competence. In M. & Co. (and other cases relied on by the Government), the complaint had been directed against acts of international organisations over the elaboration of which the member State had no influence and in the execution of which the State had no discretion. Since the applicant company was not challenging the provisions of Regulation (EEC) no. 990/93 or the sanctions regime per se, the “equivalent protection” principle of M. & Co. was not relevant. On the contrary, the Irish State had been intimately involved in the adoption and application of Regulation (EEC) no. 990/93 and had, at all material times, a real and reviewable discretion as to the means by which the result required by that regulation could be achieved. 116. In particular, the applicant company considered that the State had impounded the aircraft as a preventive measure without a clear United Nations or European Community obligation to do so, and that it had not been obliged to appeal from the High Court judgment of June 1994. The Supreme Court was not required to refer a question to the ECJ (see CILFIT, cited above, and this Court's decision in Moosbrugger v. Austria (dec.), no. 44861/98, 25 January 2000). Subsequently, in referring the question it did to the ECJ, and since, under the terms of Article 177 (now Article 234), the ECJ could only reply to the interpretative (or validity) question raised, the Supreme Court had effectively chosen to exclude certain matters from the examination of the ECJ. Moreover, given the terms of Article 234 (now Article 307), the Supreme Court should have implemented the ECJ ruling in a manner compatible with the Convention, whereas it had simply “rubberstamped” that ruling: it should have considered, and made a further reference to the ECJ if necessary, certain additional matters prior to implementing the ruling of the ECJ. The matters thereby not considered by the Supreme Court and not put before the ECJ concerned, inter alia, whether impoundment expenses should be charged, whether compensation should be paid, and the effect of Regulation (EC) no. 2472/94 and the relaxation of the sanctions regime (see paragraphs 67-71 above). The applicant company noted that certain relevant matters were raised in an affidavit filed on its behalf in the Supreme Court following the ECJ ruling (see paragraph 57 above) but that the Supreme Court ignored those points.