Order — ECLI:EU:C:2001:58
Date: 2001-01-25
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (1951)
Subject matter: State aids;Competition
Concepts: Appeals;Investments and financial aid
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible
Origin: Germany

Summary of the Order 
1. Appeals — Interest in bringing proceedings — Event subsequent to the judgment of 
the Court of First Instance having removed the prejudicial effect thereof for the 
prospective appellant 
2. Appeals — Pleas in law — Plea put forward for the first time at the stage of the 
appeal — Inadmissible 
(ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51) 
3. ECSC — Aid to the steel industry — Prohibition — Conditions — Prejudicial to 
competition — Excluded 
(ECSC Treaty, Art. 4(c)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-111/99 P 
1. The Court of Justice can declare an 
appeal to be inadmissible where an 
event subsequent to the judgment of 
the Court of First Instance has removed 
the prejudicial effect thereof for the 
prospective appellant. The fact that the 
appellant has an interest in bringing the 
proceedings assumes that the appeal is 
likely, if successful, to procure an 
advantage to the party bringing it. 
(see para. 18) 
2. To allow one party to raise for the first 
time before the Court of Justice a plea 
which it had not raised before the 
Court of First Instance would amount 
to allowing it to bring before the Court 
of Justice, whose jurisdiction in appeals 
is limited, a case of wider scope than 
that which was before the Court of 
First Instance for adjudication. On 
appeal, the competence of the Court 
of Justice is confined to examining the 
Court of First Instance's assessment of 
the pleas argued before it. 
(see para. 25) 
3. Under Article 4(c) of the ECSC Treaty, 
unlike Article 92(1) of the EC Treaty 
(now, after amendment, Article 87(1) 
EC), for aid to be considered incompa­
tible with the common market, it is not 
necessary for it to distort or threaten to 
distort competition. That provision of 
the ECSC Treaty prohibits all aid 
without any restriction, with the result 
that it cannot contain any a de minimis 
rule. 
(see para. 41) 
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