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Keywords

private investor test, the applicability v. the application of the private investor test, State aid, a tax waiver, recapitalization of a public undertaking, Article 107(1) TFEU

Abstract

This case annotation discusses two issues concerning the private investor test (the PIT) which have not been subject to a debate until the 2009 General Court’s judgment in Électricité de France vs. the European Commission judgment (EDF judgment). This was so, despite the fact that they are of key importance to the PIT, which is a legal instrument that has been applied in the field of State aid law since the 1980s. The first issue to be assessed is the necessity to make a distinction between establishing the applicability of the PIT to a given state intervention and its application to this intervention by the state. Alternatively, from the Commission’s point of view, it is the examination of its application by the state with the view of establishing the compliance with the test. The second issue is the way in which the applicability of the PIT to a given state intervention should be established. Both issues were of decisive importance for a tax waiver awarded by the French state to Électricité de France in 1997. The EDF case involved not only one of the most important public undertakings in France, but also one of the most relevant actors in the European energy sector. The judgments of the General Court of 2009 and of the European Court of Justice of 2012 raised much controversy. However, the uniqueness of this case is first and foremost about opening a proper discussion on the core of the PIT – the distinction between two capacities of the state: the public authority and the entrepreneurial one and its consequences.

First Page

190

Last Page

214

Page Count

24

Publisher

University of Warsaw

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