UK supermarkets have been urged to stop selling tuna caught in harmful fishing devices after a landmark ruling.
In February, Blue Marine Foundation and Bloom Association challenged the EU’s decision to block fisheries management measures aimed at protecting Indian Ocean tuna stocks from the impacts of drifting fish aggregating devices.
The General Court of the European Court of Justice has now sided with the NGOs in their challenge, meaning the European Commission will now have to review its decision.
“We have succeeded in ensuring that a decision which impacts the health of distant waters can no longer escape legal scrutiny,” said Priyal Bunwaree, senior legal counsel at Blue Marine Foundation. “This judgment has implications that reach well beyond marine protection – it marks a significant step forward for access to justice in environmental matters.”
In response, Blue Marine has renewed its call for retailers to stop selling tuna caught using drifting FADs.
Drifting FADs draw large schools of tuna but are widely criticised for capturing juvenile fish before they have had the opportunity to breed.
Their use contributes to overfishing and has been linked to bycatch, ghost fishing, plastic pollution and the decline of tropical tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean.
Its report ‘The UK’s Tuna Blind Spot’ exposed the widespread use of controversial drifting FADs in supermarket supply chains in 2023, noting that most of the UK’s top 10 retailers still sell tuna caught using this method.
The charity’s research found that, while many supermarkets have banned drifting FAD-caught canned tuna in their own-label ranges, they continue to sell brand-name canned tuna caught using the same methods in 2025.
Blue Marine also warned that it had concerns about “greenwashing” regarding sustainability claims from certification schemes that provided certification to fish caught with these methods.
“UK supermarkets have been well aware of the harm caused by drifting FADs for years, evidenced by the fact that many have made public commitments to ban them in their own-label tuna,” said Jess Rattle, head of investigations at Blue Marine Foundation. “Yet, despite these promises, they continue to sell brand-name tuna caught using the same destructive methods.
“UK consumers are being misled by supermarket sustainability claims.”
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