Case T-88/01

Sniace, SA

v

Commission of the European Communities

(State aid – Action for annulment – Admissibility – Measure of individual concern to the applicant)

Summary of the Judgment

1.      Procedure – Intervention – Application not supporting the form of order sought by one of the parties – Inadmissibility – Absolute bar to proceeding – To be considered of the Court’s own motion – Applicant’s lack of standing to bring proceedings

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 40, fourth para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 113 and 116(3))

2.      Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them – Commission decision closing a State aid procedure – Undertaking competing with the undertaking in receipt of the aid – Right of action – Conditions

(Arts 88(2) EC and 230, fourth para., EC)

1.      Under the fourth paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, an application to intervene is to be limited to supporting the form of order sought by one of the parties. In addition, as provided in Article 116(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, the intervener must accept the case as he finds it at the time of his intervention. However, under Article 113 of the Rules of Procedure, the Court may at any time of its own motion consider whether there is any bar to proceeding with a case as a matter of public policy, including any raised by interveners. A plea of inadmissibility concerning the applicant’s standing to bring proceedings raises such a question.

(see paras 49, 52-53)

2.      Under the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, a natural or legal person may institute proceedings against a decision addressed to another person only if that decision is of direct and individual concern to him. Persons other than those to whom a decision is addressed may claim to be concerned individually only if that decision affects them by reason of certain attributes peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons, and by virtue of these factors distinguishes them individually just as in the case of the person addressed.

As regards, more particularly, the field of State aid, not only the undertaking in receipt of the aid but also the undertakings competing with it which have played an active role in the procedure initiated pursuant to Article 88(2) EC in respect of an individual aid are individually concerned by the Commission decision closing that procedure, provided that their position on the market is substantially affected by the aid which is the subject of the contested decision. An undertaking cannot therefore rely solely on its status as a competitor of the undertaking in receipt of aid but must additionally show that, having regard to the extent of any participation by it in the procedure and to the extent of the detriment to its market position, its circumstances distinguish it in a similar way to the undertaking in receipt of the aid. An undertaking must be regarded as having played but a minor role in the course of the pre‑litigation procedure where, first, it lodged no complaint with the Commission and, second, the conduct of the procedure was not largely determined by the observations which it submitted since it successively confined itself, in essence, to reproducing certain of the Commission’s findings in the decision to initiate the procedure, commenting on them briefly, but without providing any specific evidence, and limited to asserting, without giving the least detail or any evidence, that the measures referred to in the decision to extend the procedure amount to State aid and should have been declared incompatible with the common market.

As regards the extent to which the applicant’s position on the market was affected, it is not for the Community Court, when it is considering whether the application is admissible, to make a definitive finding on the competitive relationship between the applicant and the undertakings in receipt of the aid. In that context, it is for the applicant alone to adduce pertinent reasons to show that the Commission’s decision may adversely affect its legitimate interests by seriously jeopardising its position on the market in question.

(see paras 54-57, 59-60)