On Monday 10 July, the European Commission published an implementing Regulation setting out the details of a Regulation designed to combat foreign subsidies distorting the internal market (see EUROPE 13072/26).
A consultation was held in February to gather comments and expectations from companies and Member States on the procedures for notifying foreign subsidies (see EUROPE 13115/20).
As a reminder, the Regulation on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market requires companies to notify the Commission of certain merger or acquisitions cases involving more than €50 million in foreign financial contributions over the last three years, or of the award of public procurement during which they may have received more than €4 million in foreign financial contributions.
The implementing Regulation published on Monday specifies the information that the companies concerned will have to provide.
As the Commission points out, merging companies will only have to provide detailed information on subsidies considered “the most likely to distort the internal market”, i.e. over €1 million each.
As for other subsidies of more than €1 million, but which are not likely to distort competition by their very nature, companies will only have to provide “an overview” of each of them. What’s more, only financial contributions from a single country that accumulate to €45 million over the last three years are concerned.
The same logic applies to companies participating in a public procurement contract that have received foreign financial contributions: they must provide detailed information on the foreign subsidies considered most likely to distort the market and exceeding €1 million each. In accordance with the same principle, they should only provide an overview of other financial contributions, and only when these come from the same country and total €4 million euros.
In addition to the details to be provided in relation to the subsidy thresholds, the Commission has also detailed the notification and investigation procedures, as well as the calculation of the deadlines for providing information.
When the Commission opens an ex-officio investigation and notifies the parties, for example, it sets a deadline for a response, which must not exceed one month.
See the implementing Regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/7zr (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)