The Commission takes note of the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice in Case C-401/24, referred by the District Court in Stockholm, Sweden.The request for preliminary ruling concerned the interpretation of Article 107 TFEU in the light of the reimbursement by Stockholms Hamn AB of the sums paid by the Swedish Maritime Administration to compensate for the abolition of passage fees for a lock. The Court ruled that an annual compensation constitutes State aid if that company can be regarded as an undertaking and if that compensation confers on it an advantage which it would not have obtained under normal market conditions.
Furthermore, Article 1(b)(i) and (c) of Council Regulation (EU) 2015/1589 laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 108 TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that the compensation at issue constitutes existing aid.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment including to assess its implications for its case practice.
Judgement
The Commission takes note of the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union in cases C-803/23 P, C-806/23 P, C-9/24 P and C-13/24 P, upholding the 2023 orders of the General Court (in case T-721/22, joined cases T-588/22 and T-660/22, joined cases T-718 and T-723/22, and case T-722/22) and thus the 2020 Commission negative State aid decision in this case. In its 2020 decision, the Commission had found that the implementation of the Madeira Free Zone aid scheme (Regime III) in Portugal was not in line with the Commission's State aid approval decisions of 2007 and 2013. The objective of the scheme, as approved by the Commission, was to contribute to the economic development of the outermost region of Madeira through tax incentives for companies creating jobs in Madeira and for activities effectively and materially performed in that region.
The Commission’s finding was upheld by the General Court in approximately 50 cases brought against the 2020 decision. Today’s judgments by the Court of Justice dismiss a major part of appeals against the General Court’s rulings.
This judgments are consistent with the Court’s rulings in other appeal cases related to the 2020 decision, especially those brought by Portugal (Case C 736/22 P) and by the region of Madeira (Case C- 547/23 P).
The Commission takes note of the judgment by the General Court of the European Union, which rejected the remaining pleas against a 2017 Commission State aid decision concerning electricity tariffs in Greece. In its 2017 decision, the Commission found that electricity tariffs charged by the Greek public provider DEI to its largest client Mytilinaios and which resulted from an award in the context of commercial arbitration did not constitute State aid.
Following today’s judgment, the 2017 Commission’s decision is fully upheld.
The Commission takes note of today’s preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice in Case C 2/23.
In particular, the Court held that EU law does not preclude mechanisms for administrative assistance that would require a national competition authority to transmit its files, including leniency statements and settlement submissions and the information obtained from them, to the national criminal authorities, upon request, provided that such mechanisms do not jeopardize the effectiveness of leniency programs and settlement procedures as tools to detect and establish competition law infringements.
The Court however clarified that once leniency statements and settlement submissions end up in criminal files, pursuant to Article 31(3) of the ECN+ Directive, access to these statements and submissions can only be granted to persons under investigation for the purposes of exercising their rights of defence, in particular where complaints against those persons are based on information contained therein. Access cannot be granted to other parties, in particular injured parties who seek compensation for the harm caused by the competition law infringement. The Court further clarified that this access limitation does not extend to documents and information provided in order to explain, specify in detail and prove the content of leniency statements or settlement submissions.
Today’s preliminary ruling by the Court of Justice importantly clarifies the scope of the protection afforded by Union competition law to leniency statements and settlement submissions. It contributes to the protection of leniency programmes which are a key tool for the effective enforcement of competition law, while allowing for administrative assistance between national law enforcement and regulatory authorities and guaranteeing the rights of defence of defendants in proceedings that do not relate to the enforcement of competition law.
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union dismissing Teva’s and Cephalon’s appeal against the 2023 judgment of the General Court. In its 2023 judgment, the General Court dismissed an action for annulment against a 2020 Commission decision.
In its 2020 decision, the Commission imposed a total fine of around €60.5 million on Teva and Cephalon for agreeing to delay the market entry of a generic version of Cephalon's drug for sleep disorders, modafinil, after Cephalon's main patent had expired.
Today’s judgment by the Court of Justice ultimately upholds the Commission’s 2020 decision.
The Commission takes note of the preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice in the Braile Winds case, referred by the Bucharest Court of Appeal (Romania).
The Bucharest Court of Appeal referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union four questions concerning the Braila Winds case where a company producing wind-power electricity contested the Romanian legislation that imposed an 80% tax on the income of electricity producers that exceeded a threshold price of app. EUR 90.
The question specifically concerning State aid was deemed inadmissable by the Court.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment including to assess its implications for its case practice.
The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which dismissed the Netherlands’ appeal against a 2023 judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the General Court annulled the Commission decision on the grounds that the Commission could not exclude serious difficulties in its preliminary assessment as it did not assess whether, aside from the holders of gambling licenses extended by the measure, the charities to which they remitted part of their revenues received State aid.
Today’s judgment confirms the annulment of a 2020 Commission State aid decision. In the 2020 decision, the Commission concluded that the extension by the Netherlands of gambling licenses for license holders remitting at least 50% of the proceeds of their gambling activities to charities and other entities pursuing goals that served the common interest, and subject to specific regulatory obligations concerning prizes and costs, does not constitute State aid.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on next steps.
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the General Court dismissed Red Bull’s appeal against a 2023 Commission decision ordering an inspection at several of Red Bull’s premises.
The judgment confirms that the Commission decision was well founded, that it was adopted on the basis of sufficient indicia of anticompetitive behaviour, and that it was neither arbitrary nor disproportionate.
In addition, the judgment confirms that the manner in which inspections were carried had no bearing on the legality of the inspection decision.
The Commission takes note of the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union clarifying the effects of the correction of a translation mistake in the Romanian version of the General Block Exemption Regulation.
In particular, the Court of Justice clarified that while the correction has retroactive effect, the principles of legitimate expectations and legal certainty preclude the recovery of the aid from beneficiaries that relied on the Romanian language version in a situation where the wording of the erroneously translated provision in question was clear.
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the General Court dismissed Laudamotion’s appeal against a 2023 Commission decision.
In its 2023 decision, the Commission rejected Laudamotion’s complaint against Lufthansa, claiming that Lufthansa breached Article 101 of the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) by entering into an agreement with now-bankrupt Air Berlin in 2016.
The General Court fully upheld the Commission’s assessment and decision.
The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which upheld Austria’s appeal against the judgment of the General Court of 30 November 2022. In its judgment, the General Court had rejected Austria’s action for annulment of the decision in which the Commission approved Hungary’s support measure concerning two nuclear reactors subject to a set of conditions.
The Court of Justice has now annulled the Commission’s decision.
In its judgment, the Court of Justice considered that the public procurement procedures for the construction of nuclear power plants were “inextricably linked” to the State support of the electricity production of that power plant and needed to be examined more thoroughly in the Commission’s decision, based on the Court’s finding that the organisation of an open tender procedure for the award of a contract for the construction of infrastructure can have an impact, inter alia, on the cost of the investment required for that construction and on the properties of that infrastructure.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on next steps.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).
The Commission takes note of today’s preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice in the Nissan Iberia case (C 21/24).
It follows from the Court’s ruling that the EU law prohibition of restrictive agreements, including cartels (Article 101 TFEU), read in the light of the EU law principle of effectiveness and of the EU Damages Directive, means that the time limit in national law for bringing an action for damages alleged to result from an infringement of that prohibition as found in a decision of a national competition authority cannot begin to run until that decision is no longer subject to court challenge.
According to the Court, judgments in which such a decision of a national competition authority have been definitively upheld must be officially published, freely accessible to the public and with the date of publication clearly set out.
The European Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court. The judgment upholds the Commission Decision of 25 July 2022 in case SA.55208 which found, following an in-depth investigation, that the compensation to Czech Post granted for the provision of the universal postal service obligation for the period 2018-2022 is State aid that is compatible with the internal market under the SGEI Framework.
The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court, which dismissed Huhtamaki’s application to annul Commission Decision C(2024)1212 final of 19 February 2024 refusing Huhtamaki’s request to access certain documents which are part of a Commission's State aid investigation.
In its judgment, the General Court essentially confirmed that the elements brought forward by the applicant were not sufficient to rebut the general presumption of confidentiality covering documents from State aid files.
The judgment clarifies that access to judicial review by a national court against breaches of EU public policy must be available to EU sport actors that are subject to FIFA’s unilaterally imposed system of dispute settlement.
In particular, the Court of Justice clarified that effective judicial review to national courts of EU Member States on whether arbitral awards comply with principles and provisions that are a matter of EU public policy, such as EU competition law and EU freedoms of movement, must be possible. National courts must review the interpretation of those principles and provisions, the legal consequences attached to them in a given case as well as the legal classification of the facts as established by the arbitration body and must have the possibility to make a reference to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling.
Effective judicial protection also requires that national courts are able to find that an infringement of EU competition law or EU freedoms of movement exists, to bring to an end the conduct amounting to that infringement, to order damages for the harm caused and, where appropriate, to order interim relief.
The judgment clarifies that EU law does not permit a national law to automatically treat an arbitration decision as binding or to confer on it probative value if that decision was reviewed by a court in a non-EU country, and that court cannot ask the CJEU for a preliminary ruling.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court in relation to the Commission’s decision of 2 December 2021 that imposed a fine on Credit Suisse, now UBS, for its participation in 2012 in one of the Forex cartels ( AT.40135).
The Court fully confirmed that Credit Suisse participated in the cartel and rejected all pleas in that regard, but reduced the amount of the fine from EUR 83 million to EUR 29 million, on the basis that the Commission should have taken into account alternative data for such calculation.
The judgment only concerns the participation in the cartel by, and the fine imposed on, Credit Suisse. All other banks settled their case with the European Commission.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the Court dismisses the majority of Michelin’s appeal against the Commission decision ordering an inspection at Michelin, but annuls it insofar as it relates to an earlier suspected infringement period.
The General Court considers that the Commission had sufficiently serious indicia concerning the main period covered by the Commission decision to conduct an unannounced inspection at the premises of Michelin to investigate its suspected participation in a cartel in violation of Article 101 TFEU. Nevertheless, the General Court finds that the indicia were not sufficient for an earlier period and annuls the inspection decision insofar as it relates to that earlier period.
The judgment confirms that the inspection decision was neither arbitrary nor disproportionate in respect of the suspected infringement during the main period.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.
The inspections carried out at other premises were neither challenged, nor annulled.
The Commission takes note of the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. In its judgment, the Court of justice clarifies the notions of “granting” and “existing aid” in relation to an individual grant within a COVID aid scheme, in a situation where the national authority’s refusal to grant the aid is later declared unlawful by a national court after the expiry of the time limit set by the Commission decision approving the aid scheme. The classification as new or existing aid has a direct impact on the possibility for the national authority to lawfully pay the aid to the beneficiary after the wrongful refusal.
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice. The Court annulled the Order of the General Court, which declared as inadmissible the challenge of a Commission letter confirming to a complainant that it did not qualify as an interested party under State aid procedural rules.
The Court provided clarifications regarding the notion of confirmatory act. In particular, the Court clarified under which circumstances an act cannot be considered as purely confirmatory.
The case will now go back to the General Court which will rule on the substance.
The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court of the European Union in Case T-289/24 rejecting Brasserie Nationale’s action for annulment against the Commission’s decision of 14 March 2024. In its decision, the Commission accepted the referral request under Article 22 EU Merger Regulation (‘EUMR’) submitted by the Luxembourgish Competition Authority for the Commission to examine the acquisition of Boissons Heintz by Brasserie Nationale.
In its judgment, the General Court confirmed that the Commission is in principle empowered to accept referral requests from Luxembourg, a Member State that does not have a national merger control review system, under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation, if the conditions for such referral are met. It therefore confirmed the Commission’s power to review the compatibility of Brasserie Nationale’s acquisition of Boissons Heintz with the internal market under the EUMR.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).