19 July 2021

State aid: Reduction in charges/Tax exemptions
The Commission is not required to compare the applicants’ tax treatment with that of other companies in order to check whether they were receiving special treatment insofar as the issue is merely whether the applicants’ corporate income tax burden is reduced as a result of intra-group transactions being priced at a level that does not reflect an arm’s length price, the fact that intra-group transactions are also calculated incorrectly for other companies being irrelevant to the conferral of an economic advantage on the applicants.
GC Case T-648/19 Nike European Operations Netherlands BV and Converse Netherlands BV, Judgment of 14 July 2021, LawLex202100004618JBJ

State aid : Selectivity
The conditions giving rise to a presumption as to the selectivity of the measures at issue are satisfied insofar as those measures constitute tax rulings concluded between the tax administration of the Member State concerned and the applicants, which are intended only to cover the applicants’ tax situation, not that of other companies and as the Commission has provisionally found that an economic advantage is conferred on the applicants resulting from a lowering of its tax base, the absence of specific reasons in relation to the existence or possible non-existence of an aid scheme from which the individual measure identified may have been derived does not prevent the Commission from provisionally assuming that such a measure is selective.
GC Case T-648/19 Nike European Operations Netherlands BV and Converse Netherlands BV, Judgment of 14 July 2021, LawLex202100004618JBJ

State aid: Obligation to state reasons
The decision by which the Commission decided to initiate the formal investigation procedure, as provided for in Article 108(2) TFEU brings the preliminary examination stage to a close and, in accordance with Article 6(1) of Regulation No 2015/1589, the contested decision must simply summarize the relevant issues of fact and law, include a preliminary assessment as to the aid character of the proposed measure and set out the doubts as to its compatibility with the internal market while giving the Member State concerned and other interested parties the opportunity to participate effectively in the formal investigation procedure.
GC Case T-648/19 Nike European Operations Netherlands BV and Converse Netherlands BV, Judgment of 14 July 2021, LawLex202100004618JBJ

State aid: Restriction of competition
Demonstrating a substantial adverse effect on a competitor’s position on the market cannot simply be a matter of the existence of certain factors indicating a decline in the applicant’s commercial or financial performance, such as a significant decline in turnover, appreciable financial losses or a significant reduction in market share following the grant of the aid in question insofar as the grant of that aid can also have an adverse effect on the competitive situation of an operator in other ways, in particular by causing the loss of an opportunity to make a profit or a less favorable development than would have been the case without such aid.
CJEU Case C-453/19 P Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Judgment of 15 July 2021, LawLex202100004616JBJ