**Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 28 July 2011 – Territorio Histórico de Vizcaya – Diputación Foral de Vizcaya and
Others v Commission**

**(Joined Cases C-471/09 P to C-473/09 P)**

Appeal – State aid – Action for annulment – Commission Decisions on State aid schemes implemented by Spain for firms in the provinces of Vizcaya, Álava and Guipúzcoa
– Tax credit amounting to 45% of investments – Legitimate expectations – Principle of proportionality – Principles of legal certainty and good administration – Action within a reasonable time – Failure to notify

1.                     *Appeals – Grounds – Challenge, repeating the pleas in law and arguments raised before the General Court, to the latter’s interpretation
or application of Union law – Admissibility (Art. 256(1), second para, TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first
para.) (see paras 55-56, 58)*

2.                     *State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Aid granted in breach of the procedural rules under Article 88 EC – Legitimate expectations
entertained by the recipients – Protection – Conditions and limits – No action taken by the Commission for a relatively long
time – No legitimate expectations (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 64-65, 68, 75-77)*

3.                     *Procedure – Measures of organisation of procedure – Request for production of documents – Duties of the person making the
request (Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 64(3)(d) and (4)) (see paras 85, 88)*

4.                     *Appeals – Grounds – Review by the Court of the General Court’s refusal to order measures of inquiry – Scope (Rules of Procedure
of the General Court, Art. 66(1)) (see para. 89)*

5.                     *State aid – Examination by the Commission – Examination of an aid scheme as a whole – Whether permissible (Arts 87 EC and
88 EC) (see paras 98-99)*

6.                     *State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Restoration of the previous situation – No breach of principle of proportionality (Arts
87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 100, 104)*

7.                     *State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Existence of an aid scheme – Whether possible for the national authorities to ask the
Commission to exclude certain individual aid from the duty to recover (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 101-102)*

8.                     *Procedure – Intervention – Application seeking to support the form of order sought by one of the parties – Application containing
specific grounds of challenge but not altering the framework of the action – Admissibility (Statute of the Court of Justice,
Art. 40, fourth para.) (see paras 117-119)*

9.                     *State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Aid granted in breach of the procedural rules under Article 88 EC – No action taken
by the Commission, for want of enough information available to it, for a relatively long time – No breach of the principles
of legal certainty and of good administration (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC; Council Regulation No 659/1999, Art. 14(1)) (see paras
126-127, 129-130, 134-135)*

**Re:**

| | | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Appeals brought against the judgment of the Court of First Instance (Fifth Chamber, Extended Composition) of 9 September 2009 in Joined Cases T‐227/01 to T‐229/01, T‐265/01, T‐266/01 and T‐270/01 | Diputación Foral de Álava and Gobierno Vasco and Others | v | Commission | , whereby that court dismissed, in Cases T‐227/01 and T‐265/01, an application for annulment of Commission Decision 2002/820/EC of 11 July 2001 on State aid schemes implemented by Spain for firms in the province of Álava in the form of a tax credit amounting to 45% of investments (OJ 2002 L 296, p. 1), in Cases T‐228/01 and T‐266/01, an application for annulment of Commission Decision 2003/27/EC of 11 July 2001 on State aid schemes implemented by Spain for firms in the province of Vizcaya in the form of a tax credit amounting to 45% of investments (OJ 2003 L 17, p. 1) and, in Cases T‐229/01 and T‐270/01, an application for annulment of Commission Decision 2002/894/EC of 11 July 2001 on State aid schemes implemented by Spain for firms in the province of Guipúzcoa in the form of a tax credit amounting to 45% of investments (OJ 2002 L 314, p. 26). |

**Operative part**

The Court:

| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1. | | Dismisses the main appeals and the cross-appeals; |

| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2. | | Orders the Territorio Histórico de Vizcaya – Diputación Foral de Vizcaya, the Territorio Histórico de Álava – Diputación Foral de Álava, the Territorio Histórico de Guipúzcoa – Diputación Foral de Guipúzcoa, the Cámara Oficial de Comercio, Industria y Navegación de Vizcaya, the Cámara Oficial de Comercio e Industria de Álava and the Cámara Oficial de Comercio, Industria y Navegación de Guipúzcoa to pay in equal shares the costs relating to the appeals; |

| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 3. | | Orders the Kingdom of Spain to pay its own costs. |