Marianne Clayton, Maria Segura, Gaétan Roelants du Vivier

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 21 (2022), Issue 2, Page 207 - 209

Begoña Pérez Bernabeu

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 19 (2020), Issue 3, Page 329 - 338

In its long-awaited ruling on 18 June 2019, the General Court (GC) annulled the Commission's State aid Decision in the Micula case where the Commission considered that the damages payment by Romania of an ICSID award constituted State aid. In the GC's opinion, the payment of the adverse arbitration award by a Romania does not constitute illegal State aid. Unfortunately, the GC's reasoning is tied to the timing of the measure taken by Romania, which took place before Romania acceded to the EU, and the rest of the compelling substantive pleas were not assessed. Moreover, the GC did not rule on whether the compensation of the withdrawal of the tax incentives for the post-accession period constitutes State aid given that the Commission failed to distinguish between compensation for the period predating accession and post-accession. For this reason, this judgment does not put an end to the Micula saga as long as the Commission has lodged an appeal before the Court of Justice. Keywords: arbitral award, Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), repeal of tax incentives, damages compensation, enforcement

Miguel Sampol Pucurull

European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 16 (2017), Issue 3, Page 431 - 438

The EU Treaties establish a system to ensure compliance of the judgments of the Court of Justice. In the area of State aid law the Court has already imposed some economic sanctions to Member States for failure to adopt the necessary measures to comply with a first judgment. In 2012 and 2014, the Spanish authorities had to adopt different measures in this area. Both cases arise different aspects concerning the recovery of State aid. The paper depicts some of the lessons and the difficulties of the implementation of both judgments. It reflects on the institutional aspects concerning the execution of Luxembourg decisions, on the role of the national judges and the public authorities which granted the aid when the implementation affects a beneficiary involved in an insolvency proceeding or on which tax scheme to apply to the beneficiary company when the previous scheme is declared illegal according to EU law. In the context of the recovery also the procedural rights and national remedies may have an effect on the compliance of EU law. Keywords: Penalty; Recovery; Spain; Magefesa; Basque Tax Incentives.