On Thursday 21 September, the European Commission concluded that the support granted to the Banca Tercas savings bank by the Italian mandatory deposit guarantee scheme did not constitute State aid.
The EU institution drew this conclusion after carrying out a reassessment following a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union confirming that it had erred in law in this case.
In December 2015, the Commission found that support granted by the Italian Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi (FITD) to Banca Tercas constituted illegal State aid and ordered the recovery of the funds. It considered that the FITD was acting on behalf of Italy when it intervened to cover Banca Tercas’s losses, provide it with certain guarantees and support its sale to Banca Popolare di Bari (BPB).
Italy contested the Commission’s decision and lodged an appeal, along with FITD and BDP (Case C-425/19P).
In its judgment of 19 March 2019, the General Court annulled the Commission’s decision, finding that the conditions for classifying the FITD’s intervention as State aid had not been met, and therefore that the support was not imputable to Italy or funded by its resources.
The Commission challenged the decision, but was dismissed by the Court in March 2021 (see EUROPE 12669/27).
Link to this last judgment (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/8op (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)