Removal from the Register of Case T-14/00
Date: 2004-09-25
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: European Commission, Germany, Netherlands, State aid, action for annulment (EU), distributive trades, frontier region, motor fuel

25.9.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 239/27

order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By this application the company Adriatica di Navigazione
S.p.A. challenges, pursuant to the fourth paragraph of Article
230 of the EC Treaty, the decision of the European Commis-
sion of 16 March C(2004) 470 concerning State aid granted by
Italy to the shipping companies Adriatica, Caremar, Siremar,
Saremar and Toremar.
the applicant asks the
In particular,
Court of First Instance to annul the decision under challenge
inasmuch as it considers the subsidies in respect of public-
service obligations made to Adriatica to be aid for the purposes
of Article 87 of the Treaty, and classifies those measures as
new aid.

In support of
grounds of challenge.

its action,

the applicant puts forward three

By the first, the applicant alleges that the Commission made a
twofold error of assessment. First, in its view, the Commission's
decision is vitiated because the Commission wrongly classified
the subsidies granted by the Italian State to the shipping
companies of the Gruppo Tirrenia to offset the costs of their
public-service obligations (P-S.Os) as aid for the purposes of
Article 87 EC. As a result of this mistaken classification the
decision under challenge infringes (a) the sphere of discretion
possessed by the authorities of the Member States in connec-
tion with the identifying and funding of P-S.Os, and (b) Article
4(3) of Regulation 3577/92 (1). In the second place, Adriatica
maintains that in any case the Commission fell into an error of
assessment in classifying those subsidies as new aid. In this
regard, the applicant points out first of all that the Commission
failed to take into consideration that the relevant legislation
and the public-service Conventions of the regional companies
of the Gruppo Tirrenia had been notified to the Commission
and had been authorised by the latter either expressly or by
implication.

By its second plea, the applicant challenges the errors of assess-
ment that it claims the Commission made in its contested deci-
sion in finding that
the scheme of subsidies for Adriatica
between 1992 and 1994 was incompatible [with the common
market] because Adriatica was responsible for anti-competitive
conduct prohibited by Article 81 EC. On this point, the appli-
cant notes that that assessment is incorrect since the Commis-
sion ought first of all to have ascertained whether there was
any causal connection between the particular case which
constitutes contravention of competition and the case of the
aid measures, and to have recognised that there was, in the
circumstances, no such causal connection.
the
applicant stresses that, for the purposes of ascertaining whether
there existed such a connection, the mere coincidence of the
subject-matter of the contravention of competition and the
abovementioned subsidies was quite irrelevant. Here, the appli-
cant also alleges breach of the obligation to give reasons laid
down in Article 253 EC.

In addition,

Finally, the applicant's third plea in law claims that the decision
under challenge is unlawful inasmuch as it orders that the aid
given to Adriatica for the period from January 1992 to July
1994 should be recovered, contrary to the general principles of
the protection of legitimate expectations and of the proportion-
ality of administrative action.

(1) Council Regulation (EEC) No 3577/92 of 7 December 1992
applying the principle of freedom to provide services to maritime
transport within Member States (maritime cabotage)
(OJ 1992 L
364, p. 7).

Removal from the Register of Case T-14/00 (1)

(2004/C 239/58)

(Language of the case: Dutch)

By order of 4 May 2004 the President of the Second Chamber
(Extended Composition) of the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities has ordered the removal
from the
Register of Case T-14/00, C.A.V. Ulestraten-Schimmert-Huls-
berg and Others, supported by the Kingdom of the Netherlands
v Commission of the European Communities.

(1) OJ C 135, 13.5.2000.

Removal from the Register of Case T-236/99 (1)

(2004/C 239/59)

(Language of the case: Dutch)

By order of 4 May 2004, the President of the Second Chamber
(Extended Composition) of the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities has ordered the removal
from the
Register of Case T-236/99, Direcks Service Station Bocholtz
B.V., supported by the Kingdom of the Netherlands v Commis-
sion of the European Communities.

(1) OJ C 47, 19.2.2000.