Judgment of the Court of First Instance of 12 December 2006 - Asociación de Estaciones de Servicio de Madrid and Federación Catalana de Estaciones de Servicio v Commission
(State aid - Legislation providing for urgent measures to promote competition in the sector for the retail supply of petroleum products - Decision not to raise any objections - Admissibility - Legal persons - Measure of individual concern to them - Manifest error of assessment - Duty to state reasons - Duty to initiate the formal investigation procedure - Reasonable period of time)
Language of the case: Spanish
Parties
Applicants: Asociación de Empresarios de Estaciones de Servicio de la Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (Madrid, Spain) and Federación Catalana de Estaciones de Servicio (Barcelona, Spain) (represented by: J. Jiménez Laiglesia, M. Delgado Echevarría and R. Ortega Bueno, lawyers)
Defendant: Commission of the European Communities (represented by: J. Buendía Sierra, Agent, and J. Rivas Andrés and J. Gutiérrez Gisbert, lawyers)
Interveners in support of the defendant: Kingdom of Spain (represented by: initially by E. Braquehais Conesa, and subsequently by M. Muñoz Pérez, Agents) and Asociación Nacional de Grandes Empresas de Distribución (ANGED) (Madrid) (represented by J. Pérez-Bustamante Köster and J. Passás Ogallar, lawyers),
Re:
Application for annulment of Commission Decision C(2002) 4355 final of 13 November 2002 concerning Spanish legislation on the opening of service stations by hypermarkets
Operative part of the judgment
The Court:
Dismisses the action;
Orders the applicants to bear three quarters of their own costs, three quarters of those incurred by the Commission and all of the costs incurred by the Asociación Nacional de Grandes Empresas de Distribución;
Orders the Commission to bear a quarter of its own costs and a quarter of those incurred by the applicants;
Orders the Kingdom of Spain to bear its own costs.
____________1 - OJ C 112, 10.5.2003.