Le Rayon d'Or SARL v Ministre de l'Économie et des Finances.
Date: 2014-03-27
25. As a preliminary point, it should be noted that, in the context of the procedure established by Article 267 TFEU providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case befor e it. To that end, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it (see, inter alia, Case C‑286/05 Haug  EU:C:2006:296, paragraph 17; Case C‑45/06 Campina  EU:C:2007:154, paragraph 30; and Case C‑361/11 Hewlett-Packard Europe  EU:C:2013:18, paragraph 35).
26. To that end, the Court may extract from all the information provided by the national court, in particular from the grounds of the decision to make the reference, the legislation and the principles of European Union law that require interpretation in view of the subject-matter of the dispute in the main proceedings (see Case C‑249/11 Byankov  EU:C:2012:608, paragraph 58).
29. With a view to answering that question, it must be borne in mind, firstly, that, in accordance with Article 2 of the Sixth Directive, which defines the scope of VAT, ‘the supply of … services effected for consideration’ is subject to VAT and that, in accordance with the Court’s settled case-law, a supply of services is effected ‘for consideration’, within the meaning of Article 2(1) of the Sixth Directive, only if there is a legal relationship between the provider of the service and the recipient pursuant to which there is reciprocal performance, the remuneration received by the provider of the service constituting the value actually given in return for the service supplied to the recipient (see, inter alia, Case C-16/93 Tolsma  EU:C:1994:80, paragraph 14; Case C‑174/00 Kennemer Golf  EU:C:2002:200, paragraph 39; and Case C‑37/08 RCI Europe  EU:C:2009:507, paragraph 24).
30. Secondly, the Court has held that subsidies directly linked to the prix of a taxable transaction are only one situation amongst others referred to in Article 11A(1)(a) of the Sixth Directive and that, irrespective of the particular situation in question, the taxable amount in respect of a supply of services is everything which makes up the consideration for the service (see, to that effect, Case C‑353/00 Keeping Newcastle Warm  EU:C:2002:369, paragraphs 23 and 25).
34. Next, it is not a requirement of the directive that, for a supply of goods or services to be effected ‘for consideration’, within the meaning of that directive, the consideration for that supply must be obtained directly from the person to whom those goods or services are supplied, since it may be obtained from a third party (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C‑53/09 and C‑55/09 Loyalty Management UK and Baxi Group  EU:C:2010:590, paragraph 56).
35. The fact that, in the main proceedings, the direct beneficiary of the services in question is not the national sickness insurance fund which pays the lump sum but the insured person is not, contrary to the submissions of Rayon d’Or, such as to break the direct link between the supply of services made and the consideration received.
36. Finally, it is clear from the Court’s case-law that where, as in the main proceedings, the supply of services in question is characterised, inter alia, by the permanent availability of the service provider to supply, at the appropriate time, the healthcare services required by the residents, it is not necessary, in order to recognise that there is a direct link between that service and the consideration received, to establish that a payment relates to a personalised supply of healthcare at a specific time carried out at the request of a resident (see, to that effect, Kennemer Golf  EU:C:2002:200, paragraph 40).
37. Accordingly, the fact, in the main proceedings, that the healthcare provided to residents is neither defined in advance nor personalised and that the payment is made in the form of a lump sum is also not such as to affect the direct link between the supply of services made and the consideration received, the amount of which is determined in advance on the basis of well-established criteria.