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No Presumption of Guilt: Limits for Suspension Injunctions · Case C-456/18 P Hungary v Commission · Annotation by Tamás Kende and Gábor Puskás

Annotation on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (First Chamber) of 4 June 2020 in Case C-456/18 P Hungary v Commission

Tamás Kende, Gábor Puskás

DOI https://doi.org/10.21552/estal/2021/2/10

Keywords: suspension injunction, limitations on the Commission’s powers, obligation to give reasons


In Case C-456/18 P the Court of Justice (CJ) found in favour of Hungary on the matter of an appeal against a judgment of the General Court of the European Union (GC). The CJ annulled the relevant parts of the European Commission’s (Commission) decisions on suspending the application of two very similar Hungarian progressive tax regimes. The fact that the two tax regimes constituted State aid was not subject matter of the case. The case concerned whether the Commission was justified assuming that Hungary would not comply with its obligation not to put into or suspend the operation of its State aid measure under Article 108(3) of the TFEU. The reasons the Commission gave to its suspension injunction were twofold: (1) that Hungary contested the Commission's conclusions and (2) that Hungarian authorities have not made comments on (practically have not objected to) the planned suspension injunction. As opposed to the General Court, the Court of Justice found these reasons insufficient for applying a suspension injunction. The CJ’s judgment will force the Commission to limit its suspension injunctions inter alia to cases where an irreversible change would have occurred (had the aid measure not been suspended) or where likely non-compliance by the Member State can be assumed. The CJ did not determine exactly when such a non-compliance can be assumed.

Dr Tamás Kende, partner at Kende, Molnár-Bíró, Katona Attorneys-at-Law (KMBK), Budapest. For correspondence: <mailto:tkende@kmbk.hu>. Dr Gábor Puskás, senior lawyer at HBK Partners, Budapest. For correspondence: <mailto:gpuskas@hbk-partners.com>.

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