The Court of Justice recently disrupted the few certainties that one could entertain as to the treatment by national courts of recovery requests targeting unlawful State aids. The Court now admits that an unlawful aid, which has been declared compatible by the European Commission by way of a decision that acquired a definitive status, may benefit from an exception to the reimbursement rule, save for the obligation imposed to national courts of ordering the recovery of interest for the period of unlawfulness. Not only does this new exception seem to contradict the Court’s recent case law in the field, but it may also entail significant and undesirable effects in terms of State aid policy.
World Competition