Notice for the OJ
Action brought on 28 March 2002 by Klausner Nordic Timber GmbH & Co. KG against the Commission of the European Communities
(Case T-91/02)
(Language of the case: German)
An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 28 March 2002 by Klausner Nordic Timber GmbH & Co. KG, Wismar (Germany), represented by D.O. Reich, lawyer, with an address for service in Luxembourg.
The applicant claims that the Court should:
(annul the Commission's decision of 15 January 2002 on State aid granted by Germany to Klausner Nordic Timber GmbH & Co. KG;
(order the defendant to pay the costs.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The applicant manages, as general partner, the business of the company Klausner Nordic Timber GmbH which was founded in 1997 and built a sawmill in Wismar in 1998. By the contested decision, the Commission declared the State aid which the Federal Republic of Germany granted to the applicant in relation to the construction and expansion of the sawmill to be incompatible with the common market.
The applicant claims, first, that the guarantee in excess of EUR 15.21 million with an aid component of 0.5% must be regarded as "de minimis" aid, thus precluding a Commission decision ordering the recovery of that aid. The Commission therefore wrongly applied Article 87 EC by failing to comply with Commission Regulation (EC) No 69/2001
1 and/or the notice on the de minimis rule for State aid.
The applicant further submits that the Commission misapplied Articles 87 and 88 EC and the German Investment Allowance Law. The Investment Allowance Law of 1999 provides for the grant of a tax investment allowance for the acquisition and manufacture of capital equipment and buildings by businesses located in the former East Germany and was approved in its entirety by the Commission. The requirements of the Law are fulfilled, so that the investment allowance in favour of the applicant was lawful. The Commission's decision that the grant of an investment allowance to the applicant was permissible only as to 10% is therefore unlawful.
Moreover, the applicant claims that the decision constitutes an infringement of the prohibition
venire contra factum proprium and the Community principle of the protection of legitimate expectations. Furthermore, the Commission unlawfully failed to consider the actual aid intensity amount and infringed Council Regulation (EC) No 659/1999 and Article 253 EC.
2 Finally, the Commission infringed Articles 87, 88 and 253 EC by way of its formulaic and inaccurate consideration of the company Klausner Nordic Timber as a large-scale company.