The case concerns an application for annulment in relation to the Commission’s decision finding that the “Spanish Tax Lease” (‘STL’) system entailed the grant of incompatible state aid.
The STL is based on finance agreements used for transactions consisting in the construction of ships by shipyards and their acquisition by shipping companies and in the financing of those transactions through an ad hoc legal and financial structure set up by a bank. The STL was a system combining several fiscal measures (anticipated amortisation, accelerated amortisation, tonnage tax) that entailed the grant of incompatible state aid and the Commission ordered its recovery.
In the judgement rendered on 21 February 2024, the General Court entirely endorsed the Commission’s approach according to which Member States must ensure that the beneficiaries of incompatible state aid return the aid without having the possibility of transferring the burden of recovery to other contracting parties.
The General Court confirmed that by explicitly reminding in the operative part of the Decision that the obligation to recover must be borne by the beneficiaries of incompatible aid, the Commission had not exceeded the limits of its competences. This precision was necessary to ensure achieving the objective of recovery: to restore the situation prior to the grant of the aid with the effective repayment of the aid in question by the recipients.
For more information: see General Court's Judgment