GIURISPRUDENZA Delegation of powers to EU Agencies after the Short Selling Ruling Jacopo Alberti SUMMARY I. Introduction. – II. The political context of the short selling ruling: strains arising from a two- speed Europe? – III. The proliferation of agencies in the EU legal order. – IV. The judicial precedents: a brief overview of the cases Meroni and Romano. – V. The pleas in law raised by the UK in support of its action and the role of the case law of the ECJ with regard to agencifi- cation. – VI. The short selling ruling: a general overview. – VII. Legal limits to the empower- ment of EU agencies: the Court’s reasoning … – VIII. … and its critical assessment. – IX. The legitimacy of Article 114 TFEU as a legal basis: the Court’s reasoning … – X. … and its criti- cal assessment. – XI. Conclusions. I. On 22 January 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (herein- after referred to as the Court), sitting in Grand Chamber, fully dismissed 1 an action brought by the United Kingdom against the empowerment of the Euro- pean Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) 2 in the field of short selling. More specifically, the plaintiff contested the assignment of powers, such as prohibiting or imposing conditions on the entry by natural or legal persons in- to a short sale, even overruling a decision that the competent national authori- ties might have taken, to an EU body such as ESMA, which is not envisaged in the primary law. As pointed out by many scholars 3 , this ruling lies at the very heart of the 1 Case C-270/12, UK v. Parliament and Council (short selling), ECLI:EU:C:2014:18. 2 Regulation (EU) No 1095/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 No- vember 2010 establishing a European Supervisory Authority (European Securities and Markets Authority), OJ 2010, L 331/84. 3 C. DI NOIA, M. GARGANTINI, Unleashing the European Securities and Markets Authority: governance and accountability after ECJ decision 270/12 on the short selling regulation, in European Business Organization Law Rev., 2014, p. 1; C. OHLER, Anmerkung zu einem Urteil des EuGH vom 22.01.2014 (C-270/12; JZ 2014, 244) – Zur Übertragung von Rechtsetzungsbe- fugnissen auf die Europäische Wertpapier– und Marktaufsichtbehörde, in Europarecht, 2014,