- Volume 20 (2021), Issue 2
- Vol. 20 (2021), No. 2
- >
- Pages 270 - 276
- pp. 270 - 276
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
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