Notice for the OJ

 

Action brought on 15 March 2004 by S.I.M.SA srl and Others against Commission of the European Communities

    (Case T-98/04)

    (Language of the case: Italian)

An action against Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 15 March 2004 by S.I.M.SA srl and Others, represented by Michele Arcangelo Calabrese, lawyer.

The applicants claim that the Court should:

- Annul that part of the contested decision which by implication did not allow them to reformulate, in the first procedure organised on the basis of State aid scheme No N 715/99, the applications submitted in the penultimate procedure organised on the basis of the previous scheme;

- Order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In the present action, the annulment is sought of the decision dated 12 July 2000 by which the Commission authorised, without raising objections, State aid scheme No N 715/99, only as regards the part in which the applicants are, by implication, not allowed to reformulate the applications submitted in the third procedure organised under the previous scheme.

In support of their claims, the applicants make the following allegations:

- infringement of essential procedural requirements, deriving, first, from the failure to open a formal inquiry procedure and, second, breach of the obligation to state the reasons on which measures are based, as laid down by Article 253 EC. Further breaches of essential procedural requirements are alleged to derive from infringements of Articles 9, 18 and 19 of Regulation (EC) No 659/99;

- manifest error of assessment, in that the Commission concluded that the non-observance of the expiry date of the authorisation of the previous scheme (which, for the present purposes, should have been considered still to be in existence) had the effect of cancelling any rights to reformulate applications which had been legitimately acquired whilst it was in force.

- breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations and of legal certainty and certainty as regards legal situations, in so far as the Commission purported to reassess the compatibility with the Treaty of a scheme which had already been granted authorisation and because it contravened legal situations which were in the nature of real and genuine rights, regarding the creation of which the Commission had not raised any objection whatsoever.

Lastly, the applicants allege infringement of the principle of equal treatment and of their rights of defence.

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