Case T-408/08: Action brought on 25 September 2008 — S.F. Turistico Immobiliare v Council and Commission
Date: 2008-09-25
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: Council of the European Union, European Commission, Italy, State aid, action for annulment (EU), control of State aid

22.11.2008

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 301/53

The applicants also plead that:

Alternative form of order sought:

— To substantiate Minmet's involvement, documents against
the applicants which were not cited in the SO were referred
to in the final decision.

— Although the Commission disregarded leniency in respect of
Fluorsid in the SO in breach of the rights of the defence, in
the second instance it inserted in the case-file both leniency
the applicants and an addendum to the
in respect of
leniency issue lodged after the SO.
In that manner the
Commission (i) created uncertainty regarding leniency, detri-
mental to the time frame and substance of the applicants'
rights of defence in breach of the rules set out in point 29
of the Commission Notice on immunity from fines and
(ii) continued to carry out
the SO,
adding documentation to the file, thereby infringing funda-
mental procedural rules detrimental to all the parties to the
proceedings.

investigations after

— The Commission defined the geographic market of alumi-
nium fluoride in an inconsistent manner without stating
satisfactory reasons and quantified the value of the market
completely inconsistently.

Action brought on 25 September 2008 — S.F. Turistico
Immobiliare v Council and Commission

(Case T-408/08)

(2008/C 301/89)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

— Annul in part the contested decision, in so far as it declares
the entire aid scheme incompatible with the common
market, ‘unless the recipient of the aid submitted an applica-
tion for aid under the scheme before starting work on an
initial investment project’, and orders the Republic of Italy
to recover the relevant amounts, without excepting the aid
in so far as it provides an incentive to keep the resulting
costs — borne by the recipient before the aid application
was submitted — within the limits provided for under the
de minimis aid provisions.

Further alternative form of order sought:

— Declare unlawful point 4.2 of the Council Guidelines on
national regional aid (98 C 74/06), according to which ‘[i]n
addition, aid schemes must lay down that an application for
aid must be submitted before work is started on the
in so far as it excludes from eligibility all aid
projects’,
intended in favour of recipients, without excepting that part
of the aid relating to investments, made after submission of
the application, which are functionally or structurally auton-
omous.

— Annul in part the contested decision, in so far as it orders
full recovery by the Republic of
the amounts
previously disbursed, without excepting the aid in so far as it
provides an incentive for costs to be borne by the recipient
after submission of the application for aid and relating to
portions which are functionally or structurally autonomous
in relation to the project undertaken.

Italy of

Pleas in law and main arguments

The contested decision in the present case is the same as that at
issue in Case T-394/08 Regione Sardegna v Commission.

Applicant: S.F. Turistico Immobiliare Srl
sented by: L. Marcialis, lawyer)

(Orosei, Italy)

(repre-

The pleas in law and principal arguments are similar to those
put forward in Case T-394/08.

Defendant: Council of the European Union and Commission of
the European Communities

Forms of order sought

Principal forms of order sought:

— Declare null and void the decision of the Commission of the
European Communities C(2008) 2997 of 2 July 2008 on a
State aid scheme:
‘Misuse of aid measure No N 272/98,
Regional Act No 9 of 1998’;

— Order the Commission to pay the costs of the proceedings,

including those incurred by the applicant.

The applicant pleads in particular the unlawfulness, within the
meaning of Article 241 EC, of point 4.2 of the Council Guide-
lines on national regional aid (98 C 74/06), in so far as it is
wholly counter to the rationale underlying the Community aid
policies, especially in a case characterised by such special
features, to infer from the completion of a small part (roughly
20 %) of the planned work that the rest of the work is wholly
ineligible for aid, even though that work had duly been
commenced during a time-period subsequent to that established
by the guidelines in question.