Brussels, 27/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - According to the German daily, Handelsblatt, the European Commission does not intend to renegotiate downward the fine that it is imposing on the German public bank, WestLB, after cancellation of its decision by the Court of First Instance (CFI) on 6 March. The CFI challenged neither the substance nor the principles of the decision, whereby the two public guarantee regimes enjoyed by the bank constituted illegal aid, but felt that the Commission had not sufficiently explained its method for calculating the amount of the fine (see EUROPE of 7 March, p.13). Following the ruling, WestLB hoped it would be able to count on a substantial reduction in the EUR 808 million to be reimbursed. The Commission, however, as Handelsblatt reports, will continue proceedings. In other words, it will issue a new ruling that will take the CFI's arguments into account. When the ruling was published, the Commission had announced that it could justify its arguments and that it would do so in its next decision. In the absence of negotiations, the final legal outcome of the affair will be unfavourable to the bank that would then have to reimburse up to 2 billion euro in accumulated interest, the daily reports.