Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Acts of the institutions – Statement of reasons – Obligation – Scope – Decision consistent with previous decisions

(Art. 253 EC)

2. Appeals – Grounds – Criticism of the conclusions drawn by the Court of First Instance from the findings of law on the pleas argued – Admissibility

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 113)

3. Actions for annulment – Judgment annulling a measure – Scope  – Annulment in its entirety of a decision ordering the recovery of State aid on the basis of findings limited to the statement of reasons for the application of a compound rate of interest – Not permissible

(Arts 224, sixth para., EC, 230 EC and 231, first para., EC)

Summary

1. Although a decision of the Commission which fits into a well-established line of decisions may be reasoned in a summary manner, for example by a reference to those decisions, if, on the other hand, it goes appreciably further than the previous decisions, the Commission must give an account of its reasoning. This is the case in respect of a decision ordering the recovery of State aid applying a compound rate of interest where, when it was adopted, there was no provision of Community law or case-law of the Court of Justice or the Court of First Instance which specified that the necessary interest on aid to be recovered is to be calculated on a compound basis but, on the contrary, that such an imposition of interest was the first manifestation of a new and important policy of the Commission.

(see paras 44, 46, 49)

2. Although on appeal the Court of Justice has jurisdiction to review the findings of law on the pleas argued before the Court of First Instance, it must, if the appeals procedure is not to be rendered largely meaningless, also have jurisdiction to review the legal conclusions drawn by the Court of First Instance from those findings, which also constitute a point of law and which, moreover, cannot necessarily be anticipated by the parties during the proceedings before the Court of First Instance. It follows that a plea put forward in the context of an appeal, against a legal conclusion drawn by the Court of First Instance from the finding of law made on a plea argued before it cannot be regarded as changing the subject-matter of the proceedings before the Court of First Instance within the meaning of Article 113(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice.

This is so in respect of a plea put forward by the Commission, based on the fact that the Court of First Instance, contrary to the principle of proportionality, annulled a decision in its entirety ordering the recovery of State aid on the basis of a conclusion relating only to the calculation of the interest. Nor does such a plea seek a different form of order, which is inadmissible under the second indent of Article 113(1) of the Rules of Procedure, because the Commission’s request before the Court of First Instance for the action against that decision to be dismissed can be considered also to include the narrower request for the action to be dismissed only in part.

(see paras 96-101)

3. The Court of First Instance may not, merely because it considers a plea relied on by the applicant in support of its action for annulment to be well founded, automatically annul the challenged act in its entirety. Annulment of the act in its entirety is not acceptable where it is obvious that that plea, directed only at a specific part of the challenged act, is such as to provide a basis only for partial annulment relating to elements which may be severed from the remainder of the act.

It follows that the Court of First Instance errs in law when it annuls in its entirety a decision ordering the recovery of State aid on the basis of conclusions restricted to the reasons for the calculation of the present-day value of the initial amount of the aid by applying a compound rate of interest. The issue of whether the present-day value of that amount must be calculated by applying a simple interest rate or a compound interest rate does not affect the finding, in the contested decision, that the aid is incompatible with the common market and that it must be recovered. However, the Court of First Instance cannot be criticised for having failed to separate the question of compound interest from that of simple interest, as it cannot replace the calculation of the present-day value of the initial amount of aid using a compound interest rate with one using a simple interest rate without altering the substance of the contested decision.

(see paras 104-105, 107, 109-110)