Brussels, 15/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The French state's attempts to save the company SeaFrance at the end of 2011 were unlawful, says the General Court of the EU in a ruling (case T-1/12) handed down on Thursday 15 January.
The now wound-up maritime transport operator SeaFrance, which plied the Calais-Dover crossing, was indirectly 100% owned by the French public entity the SNCF. From 2010, French authorities tried to save the operator which was in financial difficulty, first by putting in place rescue aid (an SNCF credit line), then a restructuring plan, comprising state aid in the form of recapitalisation amounting to €166.3 million and two loans granted by SNCF.
The General Court, agreeing with the European Commission opinion, dismissed France's action and found that the aid granted to SeaFrance were incompatible with the internal market. The Court did not accept France's main argument, that the Commission, in the context of the private investor test, should have dissociated the loans from the rescue aid and the recapitalisation. It holds that all of these measures form part of one single restructuring plan and no private investor would have provided aid similar to that by SNCF. The European judges add that SeaFrance did not make a real contribution of its own, free of aid and as high as possible, necessarily amounting to 50% of the financing needs of the restructuring, as required by EU law. (JK)