CELEX: C2005/019/65
Language: en
Date: 2005-01-22 00:00:00
Title: Case T-427/04: Action brought on 13 October 2004 by French Republic against Commission of the European Communities

22.1.2005   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 19/31
            
         Action brought on 13 October 2004 by French Republic against Commission of the European Communities
   (Case T-427/04)
   (2005/C 19/65)
   Language of the case: French
   An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 13 October 2004 by the French Republic, represented by its Agents Ronny Abraham, Géraud de Bergues and Stéphanie Ramet, with an address for service in Luxembourg.
   The applicant claims that the Court should:
   
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               annul in its entirety Commission Decision No C(2004)361 of 2 August 2004 concerning State aid paid by France to France Télécom;
            
         
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               order the Commission to pay the costs.
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments:
   The contested decision in this case held that the business tax regime applying to France Télécom (FT) between January 1994 and December 2002 constituted State aid which was incompatible with the common market.
   In support of its claims, the applicant argues, first, that the Commission committed a manifest error of assessment and an error of law. In that regard, it challenges the Commission's analysis of the tax regime applying to FT under Law No 90-568 of 2 July 1990 on the organisation of the French Postal Service and France Télécom. This had led the Commission to treat the levy paid by FT between 1991 and 1993 as being of a mixed character, whereas it was purely fiscal in nature and to take the view that FT had been subject to two separate tax regimes between 1991 and 2002, whereas there had been a single regime, divided into two periods. The defendant should accordingly have applied an offset in respect of the 1991-2002 period.
   The applicant also claims infringement of Article 15 of Regulation No 659/1999 laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 93 of the EC Treaty, inasmuch as the Commission should have held that there had been a period of ten years between the day when the alleged aid had been granted, 2 July 1990, being the date on which Law No 90-568 completely and definitively established the tax regime in question, and the first request for information from the defendant on 28 June 2001.
   The applicant also relies on the principle of legitimate expectations, in that the contested decision requires the recovery of aid from FT, and of its own rights of defence, in that the Commission made a finding as to the existence of aid without having given the French authorities the opportunity of commenting on an essential element of its arguments, namely the mixed character of the levy paid by FT between 1991 and 1993.