European Competition Law provides a wide-ranging review of the European rules relating to competition: restrictive agreements, abuse of a dominant position, impact of intellectual property rights, procedure, merger control, State aid.

European Competition Law

State resources may be passed on by State guidance of the investment behavior of private investors . The existence of public control is sufficient to confer a classification as State resources on private funds . It is not necessary for the means transferred to be the permanent assets of the State. It is sufficient for the funds to be available to it . There are no grounds to consider that resource …

Private funds

State resources may be passed on by State guidance of the investment behavior of private investors . The existence of public control is sufficient to confer a classification as State resources on private funds . It is not necessary for the means transferred to be the permanent assets of the State. It is sufficient for the funds to be available to it . There are no grounds to consider that resources originating with third parties that are administered by public undertakings can constitute State resources only when they are voluntarily placed at the disposal of the State by their owners or abandoned by their owners and when the State has assumed the management of those resources insofar as that revenue was administered by public undertakings owned by the State . On the other hand, the fact that, after the privatization of an undertaking, the State held  48.78% of its capital and retained a “high degree of influence” over  its business policy does not mean that the resources of the enterprise  were constantly under the control of the State, which had no mechanism  to control the way in which that undertaking managed its resources .

Tax concessions which enable investors to take up holdings in undertakings under conditions which are advantageous in fiscal terms constitute a transfer of State resources to those undertakings, despite the fact that investors can take independent decisions . Also, funds used for promotion/publicity measures financed up to 50% by a State contribution and up to 50% by levies charged by trade organizations on their members and made obligatory by a ministerial decree must be regarded, in their totality, as public resources . Funds earmarked for the financing of a public interest service scheme in the electricity sector (PIS) constitute State aid, insofar as the administrator of the funds is appointed by the State to administer an obligatory contribution imposed on all end consumers of electricity and the monies paid to the PIS operators are intended to offset the obligations imposed on them by the State . By contrast, this is not the case where a collective advertising campaign is financed through levies imposed by a trade association governed by public law to the undertakings of the sector insofar as the collected resources must be allocated to a purely commercial purpose previously determined by the trade . 

Commission Decision No 98/476/EC of 21 January 1998, Tax concessions under § 52 (8) of the German Income, LawLex200500004752JBJ.

Case C-657/15 Viasat Broadcasting UK Ltd., Judgment of 9 November 2017, LawLex201700001810JBJ: insofar as the entire distribution channel of that revenue ending with its transfer to the beneficiary was governed by Danish legislation, under which public undertakings specially appointed by the State had the task of administering that revenue, the revenue in question was under public control and at the disposal of the State  which could decide how it was to be used and thus constitutes State aid.

Case C-83/98 P France v Ladbroke Racing and Commission [2000] ECR I-3271, LawLex200500005308JBJ; Case C-482/99 France v Commission [2002] ECR I-4397, LawLex200500004858JBJ.

Case C-657/15 Viasat Broadcasting UK Ltd., Judgment of 9 November 2017, LawLex201700001810JBJ; overturning Case T-674/11 TV2 Danmark A/S, Kingdom of Danemark, Judgment of 24 september 2015, LawLex201700000250JBJ, which held that advertising revenue paid by advertisers for the provision of advertising air time did not constitute State resources insofar as it neither amounted to resources voluntarily placed at the disposal of the State by their owners, nor resources which were abandoned by their owners and of which the State had assumed management, as the State's intervention was limited to determining the percentage of the resources in question.

Case T-565/19 Oltchim (SA), Judgment of 15 December 2021,  LawLex202100006343JBJ.

Case C-156/98 Germany v Commission [2000] ECR I-6857, LawLex200500004914JBJ. See also, Case C-72/91 Sloman Neptun v Bodo Ziesemer [1993] ECR I-887, LawLex200500004927JBJ, for tax relief.

Commission Decision No 2007/55/EC of 9 November 2005, Aid in favor of producers and traders of liqueur wines, LawLex200700000306JBJ.

Case C-706/17 AB "Achema", AB "Orlen Lietuva", AB "Lifosa", Judgment  of 17 May 2019, LawLex201900000637JBJ.

Case C-345/02 Pearle and others [2004] ECR I-7139, LawLex200500004505JBJ.

European Competition Law

374. Private funds

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

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374. Private funds

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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