Action brought on 7 October 2014 — Arcofin and Others v Commission
(Case T-711/14)
Language of the case: French
Parties
Applicants: Arcofin SCRL (Schaerbeek, Belgium), Arcopar SCRL (Schaerbeek), and Arcoplus (Schaerbeek) (represented by: R.B. Martens, A. Verlinden and C. Maczkovics, lawyers)
Defendant: European Commission
Form of order sought
The applicants claim that the General Court should:
annul the contested decision in its entirety;
in the alternative, annul the contested decision entirely insofar as it declares the aid measure to be incompatible with the internal market and orders the Belgian State to recover the aid and to make no payment of the guarantee to the individual shareholders of the applicants;
in the further alternative, annul Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the contested decision insofar as those articles order the Belgian State to recover the aid and to make no payment of the guarantee to the individual shareholders of the applicants;
in any event, order the Commission to pay the costs.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The applicants seek the annulment of Commission Decision 2014/686/EU of 3 July 2014 (notified under document C(2014) 1021 final) on the State aid implemented by Belgium in the form of a guarantee scheme protecting the shares of individual members of financial cooperatives (State aid SA.33927 (2012/C) (ex 11/NN)) (OJ 2014 L 284, p. 53).
In support of the action, the applicants rely on five pleas in law.
First plea in law, alleging infringement of Articles 107(1) TFEU, 108 TFEU and 296, second paragraph, TFEU, of Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 659/1999, 1 of the principle that reasons must be given for legal acts and for procedural rules governing the burden of proof and taking of evidence, inasmuch as the Commission held, wrongly, and without providing reasons, that the applicants were the only actual beneficiaries of the aid.
Second plea in law, alleging infringement of Articles 107(1) TFEU and 296, second paragraph, TFEU and of the principle that reasons must be given for legal acts, and an error in the assessment of the facts, inasmuch as the Commission held, wrongly, and without providing reasons, that the guarantee scheme was likely to distort competition with other cooperatives and providers of investment products and to affect trade between Member States.
Third plea in law, alleging, in the alternative, infringement of Articles 107(3)(b) TFEU and 108(2) TFEU and a manifest error of assessment, inasmuch as the Commission decided, wrongly, that the guarantee scheme was incompatible with the internal market.
The applicants submit that, if it were State aid, it ought to have been declared compatible with the internal market as being aid intended to remedy a serious disturbance in the Belgian economy, within the meaning of Article 107(3)(b) TFEU.
Fourth plea in law, alleging, in the further alternative, infringement of Article 108(2) TFEU, of Article 14(1) of Regulation (EC) No 659/1999, and of the principle of legitimate expectation, inasmuch as the applicants’ legitimate expectation as regards the legality of the measure precluded the Commission from ordering recovery of the aid.
Fifth plea in law, alleging, in the further alternative, infringement of Articles 107 TFEU and 108 TFEU and of Regulation (EC) No 659/1999, a misuse of power or, at the very least, a breach of the principle of proportionality, inasmuch as a decision by which the Commission requires a Member State to adopt a particular measure in order to abolish the aid, as in the present case the decision ordering the Member State not to make any payment to individual shareholders of the applicants, manifestly exceeds the Commission’s powers or is, at the very least, manifestly disproportionate.
________________________1 Council Regulation (EC) No 659/1999 of 22 March 1999 laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (OJ 1999 L 83, p. 1).