Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Applications for interim measures — Suspension of operation of a measure — Interim relief — Conditions for granting — Prima facie case — Urgency — Cumulative requirements — Balancing of all the interests involved — (Arts 242 EC and 243 EC; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

2. State aid — Investigation by the Commission — Breach, when adopting a decision to open the formal review procedure, of the requirement to act within a reasonable time — Not sufficient to render the final decision unlawful — (Art. 88(2) EC; Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 41(1))

3. Applications for interim measures — Suspension of operation of a measure — Conditions for granting — Urgency — Factors capable of being taken into consideration — (Arts 88(2) EC and 242 EC)

Summary

1. Article 104(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance provides that an application for interim measures must state the circumstances giving rise to urgency and the pleas of fact and law establishing a prima facie case for the interim measures applied for. Those conditions are cumulative, so that an application for interim measures must be dismissed if any one of them is not fulfilled. The court hearing the application for interim measures shall also, where appropriate, weigh up the interests involved.

see para. 53

2. Whilst the conducting of administrative procedures within a reasonable period is a general principle of Community law, compliance with which is enforced by the Community judicature, and that right is reiterated, as an element of the right to good administration, by Article 41(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the mere fact that a decision opening the formal review procedure under Article 88(2) EC was adopted after the expiry of a reasonable period is not sufficient to render a decision taken by the Commission at the conclusion of that procedure unlawful.

see para. 65

3. When examining an application for suspension of operation of the obligation to repay an alleged State aid, imposed by a decision taken under Article 88(2) EC and resulting from a contested breaking-off of the formal investigation procedure which preceded its adoption and the adoption of another decision to which it is linked, and the suspension of operation of which is also applied for in separate proceedings for interim relief, the court hearing the application may, for the purposes of examining the urgency of the application, consider it appropriate to take account of the overall situation arising for the applicant from the operation of both decisions.

see para. 91