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Die Suche erzielte 2 Treffer.

Quo Vadis Access to Documents in State Aid Investigations? · Case T-134/20 Huhtamaki Sàrl · Annotation by Federico Fichera Journal Artikel

Annotation on the Judgment of the General Court of the European Union (First Chamber) of 2 March 2022 in Case T-134/20 Huhtamaki Sàrl v European Commission

Federico Fichera

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Jahrgang 21 (2022), Ausgabe 4, Seite 441 - 448

On 2 March 2022, the First Chamber of the General Court of the European Union gave its judgment in Case T-134/20 Huhtamaki v Commission, which concerned the right to access to the documents of a State aid investigation's file. While the judgment confirmed a number of principles that have been consistently upheld by the case law of the Court of Justice, it also raised some interesting points concerning the obligation for the European Commission to state reason in case of a well-circumstanced request for access to documents. The General Court explained that the Commission should, when assessing such requests, take into consideration and give a separate motivation for the different (sub)categories of documents requested, thus introducing an element of novelty in such an assessment. This approach, not fully developed by the General Court, might redesign the presumption of confidentiality that traditionally applies to documents belonging to a State aid investigation's file. Moreover, there is a risk that it would cause an increase of disputes linked to requests for access to documents in the context of State aid investigations and jeopardise the Commission's assessment of such requests.


Digital Service Taxes under State Aid Scrutiny Journal Artikel

Federico Fichera

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Jahrgang 20 (2021), Ausgabe 4, Seite 479 - 491

Digital companies, on which contemporary economies are largely based, rely heavily on intangible assets and data processing. They are also able to carry out their activity without a physical presence in the market, which creates a separation between the country where these companies make their profits and the country in which those profits are taxed. It has thus become important to develop an efficient strategy to tax these operators. In 2018, the European Union made an attempt to do so and the Commission introduced a proposal for a directive on the introduction of a Digital Service Tax (DST). Due to lack of the required unanimity in Council, such a proposal was not adopted. In the meantime, however, some Member States have introduced their own national DSTs, clearly inspired by the Commission's proposal. This paper investigates whether such fiscal measures constitute State aid and, in light of recent case-law, it concludes that this is probably not the case. However, in consideration of the peculiarities of such taxes, it is argued that they might still be found to trigger Article 107(1) TFEU in accordance with said jurisprudence. From a broader perspective, it is also argued that the approach used by the CJEU when ruling on fiscal aid should be less formalistic and should give more consideration to the potential effect that these could have on competition within the Internal Market. Keywords: Digital Service Tax; digital taxation; Fiscal State aid; GAFA; selectivity.

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