CAE acquired a number of independent FTO's some years ago - each held an approval in it's own right for training outside of member states under JAR and therefore training in Phoenix was approved by the Belgian CAA (BCAA) for the former Sabena Flight Academy/Sabena Airline Training Center (SFA/CAE Brussels), the Dutch IVW/ILeNT for the Nationale luchtvaartschool (NLS/CAE Amsterdam), and subsequently, when OAA was bought in 2012, a UK CAA approval for that operation. CAE Phoenix was effectively three EU approvals under one roof. Things are different under EASA and certainly efforts were made to rationalise the three operations (in fact, the aim was to align them with FAA as far as possible, which couldn't work). OAA was not alone holding approvals as far back as 2001 either as the UK CAA also approved the University of Western Michigan and a number of other smaller operations (FlightSafety held a CAP509 approval pre-JAR at their Vero Beach, FL facility), the LBA approved Lufthansa Flight Training/ATCA and the Dutch, the KLM Flight Academy in Ryan, AZ and later Deer Valley, Phoenix, and Fort Pierce, Florida. I don't believe anything was snuck through by virtue of grandfathering - these were all legitimate, standalone approvals.
Is the CAA re-establishing certification capability?