The judges of the General Court of the European Union confirmed, in two judgments of Wednesday 19 June in joint Cases T-353/15 and T-373/15, the European Commission's decision of 1 October 2014 concerning State aid granted by Berlin to the Nürburgring complex.
The Nürburgring complex, located in Germany, includes a race track, a leisure park, hotels and restaurants. From 2002 to 2012, the public companies that owned them received support measures from the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The Commission opened a formal investigation procedure on these measures in 2012 (see EUROPE 10671/4). Also in 2012, a German court ruled that the sellers were insolvent and decided to proceed with the sale of their assets, before a tender process for the sale was launched in 2013.
In 2011 and 2013, Ja zum Nürburgring eV, a German motor sport association for the reinstatement and promotion of a race track at the Nürburgring, lodged complaints with the Commission, arguing that the successful bidder would receive new aid and ensure the continuity of the sellers' economic activities. Therefore, the association considered that the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate should recover the aid received by the sellers.
In 2014, NeXovation, a US company, in turn lodged a complaint with the Commission on the ground that the tender process had not been open, transparent, nondiscriminatory or unconditional and had not achieved a market price for the sale of the Nürburgring assets, since those assets had been transferred to a domestic tenderer Capricorn Nürburgring Besitzgesellschaft GmbH (Capricorn).
On 1 October 2014, the Commission adopted a decision on the matter, finding that certain support measures for sellers were unlawful. However, it considered that Capricorn and its subsidiaries were not concerned by the possible recovery of the aid and that the sale of the assets to the company did not constitute State aid. In addition, it validated the tender process that led to the sale of the assets.
NeXovation and Ja zum Nürburgring eV then brought actions for annulment of the decision before the General Court of the European Union. However, in its judgement, the General Court held that the actions must be dismissed as inadmissible in part and unfounded as to the remainder.
Text of the judgments: https://bit.ly/2KrXl1C (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)