Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Procedure – Objection of lis alibi pendens – Same parties, subject-matter and submissions in two actions – Withdrawal of the applicant from one of his actions – Disappearance of lis alibi pendens

2. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them – Commission decision prohibiting a sectoral aid scheme

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

3. State aid – Examination by the Commission – Examination of an aid scheme taken as a whole – Whether permissible

(Arts 87 EC and 88 EC)

4. State aid – Concept – Granting of an advantage to beneficiaries

(Art. 87(1) and (3) EC)

5. Appeals – Grounds – Grounds of a judgment vitiated by an infringement of EU law – Operative part well founded on other legal grounds – Dismissal

6. State aid – Commission decision finding an aid scheme incompatible with the common market – Duty to state reasons

(Art. 88(2) EC)

7. State aid – Adverse effect on competition – Effect on trade between Member States – Scope of the evidential burden on the Commission

(Art. 88 EC)

8. Appeals – Grounds – Mistaken assessment of the facts – Inadmissibility – Review by the Court of Justice of the assessment of the evidence – Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted

(Art. 225 EC; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1), first para., (c))

9. State aid – Prohibition – Exceptions – Aid which may be considered compatible with the common market – Aid for the development of particular areas

(Art. 87(3)(c) EC)

Summary

1. When an action is dismissed as inadmissible, the proceedings arising from it, which were pending, cease to exist, so that the situation of lis alibi pendens disappears. The same applies when the case pending disappears because the applicant has withdrawn his action. The interest in avoiding the situation in which parties use that possibility in a manner contrary to the principle of procedural economy does not require a situation of lis alibi pendens to persist even in relation to an action from which the applicant has withdrawn. That interest is sufficiently protected by the applicant’s being ordered to pay the costs, in accordance with Article 69(5) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice or Article 87(5) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.

(see paras 31-32)

2. In the context of an action for annulment, the actual beneficiaries of individual aids granted under a system of aid of which the Commission has ordered recovery are individually concerned within the meaning of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC.

The order for recovery already concerns all the beneficiaries of the system in question individually in that they are exposed, as from the time of the adoption of the contested decision, to the risk that the advantages which they have received may be recovered, and thus find their legal position affected. Those beneficiaries thus form part of a restricted circle, without it being necessary to examine additional conditions, concerning situations in which the Commission’s decision is not accompanied by a recovery order. Moreover, the possibility that, subsequently, the advantages declared illegal may not be recovered from their beneficiaries does not exclude the latter from being regarded as individually concerned.

(see paras 53, 56)

3. In the case of an aid programme, the Commission may confine itself to studying the characteristics of the programme at issue in order to assess, in the grounds for its decision, whether, by reason of the arrangements provided for under the programme, the latter gives an appreciable advantage to the beneficiaries in relation to their competitors and is likely to benefit in particular undertakings engaged in trade between Member States. Thus, in a decision which concerns such a programme, the Commission is not required to carry out an analysis of the aid granted in individual cases under the scheme. It is only at the stage of recovery of the aid that it is necessary to look at the individual situation of each undertaking concerned.

When the Commission rules in a general, abstract way on a scheme of State aid, declares it incompatible with the common market and orders recovery of the amounts received under that scheme, it is for the Member State to verify the individual situation of each undertaking concerned by such a recovery operation.

(see paras 63-64, 130)

4. The grounds underlying an aid measure do not suffice to exclude the measure at the outset from being classified as aid within the meaning of Article 87 EC. Article 87(1) does not distinguish between measures of State intervention by reference to their causes or their aims but defines them in relation to their effects.

The fact that a Member State seeks to approximate, by unilateral measures, the conditions of competition in a particular sector of the economy to those prevailing in other Member States cannot deprive the measures in question of their character as aid. That also applies to measures designed to compensate for possible disadvantages to which undertakings established in a certain region of a Member State are exposed. The very wording of the EC Treaty, which in Article 87(3)(a) and (c) classifies ‘aid to promote the economic development of areas’ and ‘aid to facilitate the development of certain areas’ as compatible with the common market, indicates that advantages whose scope is limited to part of the territory of the Member State subject to aid discipline are capable of constituting selective advantages.

It follows that the objective of compensating for competitive disadvantages of undertakings established in a certain region in a Member State, pursued by reductions in social security contributions, cannot remove from those advantages their character as aid within the meaning of Article 87(1) EC.

(see paras 94-96, 100)

5. If the grounds of a judgment of the General Court disclose an infringement of EU law but its operative part is shown to be well founded on other legal grounds, the appeal must be dismissed.

(see para. 118)

6. A Commission decision finding an aid scheme incompatible with the common market, accompanied by a recovery order, must allow its scope to be clearly identified. It must contain in itself all the matters essential for its implementation by the national authorities, thereby excluding the possibility that the actual content of that decision is not established until afterwards, by means of an exchange of letters between the Commission and the national authorities. The verification to be carried out by the national authorities of the individual situation of each beneficiary concerned must be carried out sufficiently within the framework of the decision finding the aid scheme incompatible with the common market.

(see para. 120)

7. The Commission is required, not to establish the existence of a real impact of aid on trade between Member States and an actual distortion of competition, but only to examine whether that aid is capable of affecting such trade and distorting competition.

In that regard, it cannot be a consequence of the small amount of the aid or of the fact that most of the beneficiaries carried on their business at a local level that aid granted under that scheme is not capable of affecting trade between Member States and resulting in a distortion of competition.

(see paras 134-135)

8. Pursuant to Article 225 EC, the first paragraph of Article 51 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of its Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, when an applicant alleges distortion of the evidence by the General Court, he must indicate precisely the evidence alleged to have been distorted and show the errors of appraisal which, in his view, led to such distortion. Such distortion exists when, without recourse to new evidence, the assessment of the existing evidence is manifestly incorrect..

(see paras 152-153)

9. The Commission may legitimately base its reasoning, when giving reasons for refusing to apply the derogation under Article 87(3)(c) EC, on the fact that the aid in question is operating aid for undertakings. Such aid, which in principle distorts the conditions of competition, may be authorised, in accordance with the Commission communication on the method for the application of Article 87(3)(a) and (c) EC to regional aid, and with the Guidelines on national regional aid, only in exceptional circumstances.

(see para. 168)