- Jahrgang 15 (2016), Ausgabe 2
- Vol. 15 (2016), Nr. 2
- >
- Seiten 291 - 298
- pp. 291 - 298
Icelandic Power Sale Contracts ∙ EFTA Surveillance Authority’s Decisions Nos. 391/11/COL, 392/11/COL, 67/15/COL and 207/15/COL ∙ Annotation by Fiorenzo Bovenzi, Christian Lund and María Muñoz de Juan
Annotation on the EFTA Surveillance Authority’s Decisions Nos. 391/11/COL, 392/11/COL, 67/15/COL and 207/15/COL
In recent years, the EFTA Surveillance Authority has examined several power sale contracts concluded by the Icelandic state-owned electricity company Landsvirkjun with industrial customers, in order to exclude the presence of State aid. This article reviews the recent decisional practice of the Authority, with a focus on the application of the market-economy operator test, which aims at establishing that the contracts made commercial sense and properly reflected market conditions, thus excluding the existence of an advantage. The Authority’s assessment has taken into account the specific features of the Icelandic electricity market, such as its lack of interconnections, and the fact that there are no readily available benchmarks against which Landsvirkjun’s contracts can be compared.
Keywords: European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, Notion of aid, State Resources, Advantage, Market-Economy Operator (MEO) Test.