In a ruling handed down on Thursday 10 November (Case C-211/20 P), the Court of Justice of the European Union has upheld the EU General Court’s ruling of March 2020 (see EUROPE 12445/20) that annulled the European Commission’s decision of July 2016, which had considered the public guarantee granted by the Valencian Community Government to professional football club Valencia CF to be unlawful state aid and incompatible with the internal market.
In its appeal, the Commission puts forward a single plea alleging that the General Court misinterpreted the concept of economic advantage (Article 107 Section 1 TFEU).
On the other hand, the Court considers that the General Court did not impose an excessive burden of proof on the Commission, since it merely found that the Commission had not satisfied the requirements which it imposed on itself for the analysis of cases such as this one in its notice of June 2008 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty to State Aid in the form of guarantees.
In particular, the European Court is of the opinion that the Commission has not demonstrated the existence of a corresponding reference guarantee premium in the financial markets. According to him, the latter only deduced from its finding that Valencia CF was in difficulty when the guarantee was granted, that no financial institution would have offered a guarantee to the football club, but also that it was excluded that there could be a similar unsecured loan.
See the Court’s judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/40a (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)