Brussels, 07/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On 3 April (ruling C-559/12 P), the Court of Justice of the EU upheld the judgment of the General Court of September 2012 (see EUROPE 10693) that the implied unlimited guarantee granted by the French state to La Poste, as a public establishment, constitutes state aid which is incompatible with the single market.
Following an appeal by France against this verdict, it ruled that there was a presumption that the granting of a guarantee of this kind implied an improvement of the financial position of the company by reducing the burdens on its budget.
In its ruling, the Court confirms, as the General Court recognised, that its decision of 2010 ordering France to stop the aid in question, the Commission could take as its basis the method of “body of reliable, accurate and consistent evidence” to prove the existence of an implicit unlimited guarantee and verify whether the state is obliged by the law of the country to engage its own resources to cover the losses of the defaulting public establishment.
Like the General Court, it concluded that the existence of a guarantee of this kind gives the undertaking an immediate advantage and constitutes unlawful state aid, as it is granted without consideration and allows it to obtain loans under financial conditions which are more advantageous than those normally available on the market or to offer a lesser degree of collateral.
The Court also confirmed that, in order to prove the advantage conferred by the guarantee, all the Commission had to do was to establish the existence of the guarantee, without any obligation to prove any effects produced by it at the time it was granted. (FG)