Case T-166/01: Action brought on 23 July 2001 by Lucchini S.p.A. against the Commission of the European Communities
Date: 2001-10-13
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: European Commission, Italy, State aid, action for annulment (EU), control of State aid, iron and steel industry

13.10.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 289/29

Action brought on 23 July 2001 by Lucchini S.p.A. against
the Commission of the European Communities

(Case T-166/01)

(2001/C 289/68)

(Language of the case: Italian)

been considered only environmental to be production
investments and thus applied rules which were not
applicable to the contested investments. Once it had
established that the investments notified related only to
the environment and not to production, the Commission
should have made its decision on the basis only of the
scheme of rules in Article 3 of the steel aid code which is
applicable in this case and not of the rules which govern
the Commission’s monitoring activities in cases in which
there are production investments as well as environmen-
tal investments.

An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of Justice of the European
Communities on 23 July 2001 by Lucchini S.p.A., represented
by Giovanni Vezzoli.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

— Internal inconsistencies in the reasoning of the Com-
mission which, while holding the investments notified to
be merely in production, criticised the Italian authorities
for not making any distinction between production costs
and environment costs, a distinction which it could make
only if the investments were held by the Commission to
be environmental.

— as regards its main claim on the substance: annul Article 1
of the Commission Decision of 21 December 2000
(C(2000) 4368, OJ 2001 L 163 of 20 June 2001), where
the Commission declared the State aid which Italy was
planning to implement for Lucchini SpA amounting to
ITL 13,5 billion (EUR 6,98 million) to be incompatible
with the common market;

— Failure to state reasons, in so far as the defendant did not
furnish any objective account of the reasons why it
reached the conclusions which led it to consider the aid
notified incompatible with the common market, nor
of the reasons why it considered that the contested
investments related to production installations rather
than environmental structures.

— in any event: order the Commission to bear the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The contested decision closes a procedure which began with
the formal notification of the Commission by Italy under
Article 3 of the steel aid code of a plan for state aid for
Lucchini SpA for investments for environmental purposes to
be made at its plant in Piombino. In that procedure, the
the investments notified were
defendant maintained that
primarily for the purposes of production rather than of
benefit to the environment and were moreover investments
necessitated by other production investments for the modern-
isation of the plant at Piombino and that, as such, they were
not eligible for State aid programmes.

The applicant relies on the following pleas in support of its
claims:

— Misuse of powers by reason of misrepresentation of the
facts in so far as the Commission made a manifest error
of assessment in evaluating without stating any reasons
the investments notified, described by the Commission
itself as being for both production and environmental
purposes.

— Breach and misapplication of rules of law, in so far as the
defendant considered investments which should have

— Differences in the treatment of the applicant and that of
other undertakings in certain important points of the
reasoning of the Commission relating to aid granted in
similar cases.

Action brought on 24 July 2001 by SAGEM against the
Commission of the European Communities

(Case T-169/01)

(2001/C 289/69)

(Language of the case: English)

An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities on 24 July 2001 by SAGEM SA,
having its registered office in Paris, represented by Dominique
Berlin of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Paris (France).