Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 28 July 2011 – Territorio Histórico de Vizcaya – Diputación Foral de Vizcaya and Others v Commission

(Joined Cases C-471/09 P to C-473/09 P)

Appeal – State aid – Action for annulment – Commission Decisions on State aid schemes implemented by Spain for firms in the provinces of Vizcaya, Álava and Guipúzcoa – Tax credit amounting to 45% of investments – Legitimate expectations – Principle of proportionality – Principles of legal certainty and good administration – Action within a reasonable time – Failure to notify

1.                     Appeals – Grounds – Challenge, repeating the pleas in law and arguments raised before the General Court, to the latter’s interpretation or application of Union law – Admissibility (Art. 256(1), second para, TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.) (see paras 55-56, 58)

2.                     State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Aid granted in breach of the procedural rules under Article 88 EC – Legitimate expectations entertained by the recipients – Protection – Conditions and limits – No action taken by the Commission for a relatively long time – No legitimate expectations (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 64-65, 68, 75-77)

3.                     Procedure – Measures of organisation of procedure – Request for production of documents – Duties of the person making the request (Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 64(3)(d) and (4)) (see paras 85, 88)

4.                     Appeals – Grounds – Review by the Court of the General Court’s refusal to order measures of inquiry – Scope (Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 66(1)) (see para. 89)

5.                     State aid – Examination by the Commission – Examination of an aid scheme as a whole – Whether permissible (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 98-99)

6.                     State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Restoration of the previous situation – No breach of principle of proportionality (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 100, 104)

7.                     State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Existence of an aid scheme – Whether possible for the national authorities to ask the Commission to exclude certain individual aid from the duty to recover (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC) (see paras 101-102)

8.                     Procedure – Intervention – Application seeking to support the form of order sought by one of the parties – Application containing specific grounds of challenge but not altering the framework of the action – Admissibility (Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 40, fourth para.) (see paras 117-119)

9.                     State aid – Recovery of unlawful aid – Aid granted in breach of the procedural rules under Article 88 EC – No action taken by the Commission, for want of enough information available to it, for a relatively long time – No breach of the principles of legal certainty and of good administration (Arts 87 EC and 88 EC; Council Regulation No 659/1999, Art. 14(1)) (see paras 126-127, 129-130, 134-135)

Re:

Operative part

The Court: