Judgment;Information — ECLI:EU:T:2025:531
Date: 2025-05-21
Language of the case: English
Subject matter: State aids;Competition
Procedure: Action for annulment - successful;Action for annulment
Origin: Lithuania

Action brought on 4 February 2022 – Interneto žiniasklaidos asociacija and Others v Commission (Case T-72/22) Language of the case: English Parties Applicants: Interneto žiniasklaidos asociacija (Vilnius, Lithuania), All Media Lithuania UAB (Vilnius), All Media Radijas UAB (Vilnius) (represented by: K. Kačerauskas, lawyer) Defendant: European Commission Form of order sought The applicants claim that the Court should: declare the application admissible and well founded; annul, in its entirety, the contested Letter; order the Commission to pay all the costs. Plea in law and main arguments In support of the action, the applicant relies on one plea in law. First plea in law, alleging improper assessment of information provided by the applicants and failure to investigate circumstances described in the complaint, that on 21 June 2020 was submitted by the applicants to the Commission concerning illegal state aid provided to the Lithuanian public service broadcaster – VšĮ „Lietuvos Nacionalinis Radijas ir Televizija“, with due diligence, which resulted in complete disregard of factual situation and errors of law in the Letter adopted by the Commission. Such failure amounted to infringement of an essential procedural requirement and substantive provisions regulating state aid control mechanism established in Articles 107(1) and 108(3) of TFEU. In particular, the Commission’s improper assessment is evidenced by the following flaws that vitiate the Letter: (i) the Commission failed to consider and compare compatibility of scheme existing prior 10 December 1994 with the scheme existing after 2015 and 2020 changes of the Law on Lithuanian National Radio and Television of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter “Law on LRT”) with the required due diligence and required legal standard and, hence, made an essential procedural infringement; (ii) the Commission breached Articles 107(1) and 108(3) TFEU by failing to recognise that 2015 and 2020 changes of the Law on LRT constitute alterations to state aid measure, which should be coordinated with the Commission; (iii) the Commission breached Articles 107(1) and 108(3) TFEU by failing to recognise that 2020 changes of the Law on LRT constitute alterations to state aid measure, which should be coordinated with the Commission. ____________