Brussels, 16/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 16 May, the European Court of Justice rejected (C-615/11 p) the European Commission appeal against the judgment of 29 September 2011 of the General Court of the European Union (T-442/07) and decided that the Commission had failed to take a decision on the complaints addressed to it in 2006 from the Ryanair airline company with regard to aid awarded by Italy and the subsequent advantages to rival airlines Alitalia, Air One and Meridiana.
The General Court had received certain arguments from Ryanair concerning the: - transfer of 100 Alitalia employees to Air One and Meridiana which meant that the company avoided having to pay redundancy payments; - the compensation paid by the state to Alitalia following the attacks on 11 September 2001 and reductions in “pivotal” airport fees that benefited Alitalia. The Commission requested that this decision be annulled and argued that the Court had committed a number of mistakes: - in the definition of the criteria to establish whether the Commission was put in possession of the information or the complaint concerning the claimed illegal aid with regard to the transfer of the hundred employees; - by wrongly describing the letter as a “complaint” sent in June 2006 denouncing Italian aid; - in the verification of the Commission's obligation to immediately act following a complaint or inform Ryanair of the fact that there had not been sufficient motives for giving its verdict on the case.
In its decision, the Court refuted these arguments and confirmed the decision of the General Court, judging that the Commission had been obliged to open an investigation on the basis of the information received. It considers that the letter sent by Ryanair, despite its succinct nature and formulation of the elements transmitted, could have enabled the Commission to identify accurately enough the supposed beneficiary of the illegal aid and the litigious advantage and mechanism by which this had been granted. With regard to the Commission's obligation to take action on the basis of the elements contained in the complaint or whether it thought that these were insufficient for giving its opinion on the case and informing Ryanair about it, the Court confirms that the Commission could not have continued in a state of inaction in the preliminary phase of the examination and therefore rejects the Commission's appeal.
Ryanair welcomes this decision and expects the Commission to investigate these repeated cases of state aid and call on Alitalia to reimburse the aid it had illegally received. (FG/transl.fl)