The State aid reform appears to assimilate the rules already existing for cartels, abuse of dominance and mergers, by incorporating several of the competition law tools on information collection. The question asked is whether these tools initially designed to regulate undertakings are effective when regulating a State’s behaviour. The article draws a parallel to similar tools in competition law under Regulation 1/2003 and contextualise why change was introduced in the 2014 State aid reform. It investigates the use and success of the new tools by a case study of these new powers. The empirical data indicate that optimal use of direct access to information from third parties is hindered by a lack of transparency and too high thresholds for the Commission to use the new tools.
Keywords: information collection, sector inquiry, fines, third parties, Regulation 1/2003, SAM