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	Číslo (Kód CELEX): Number (CELEX Code):		61993J0471

	Název: Title:		CFI Judgment of 18 September 1995 Case T-471/93 Tierce Ladbroke S.A. v Commission of the European Communities Action for Annulment [1995] ECR II-2537 ”Ladbroke”

	Publikace: Publication:

	Předmět (klíčová slova): Keywords

	Související předpisy: Corresponding acts:

	Odkaz na souvisejicí judikáty: Corresponding Judgements:		Joined Cases 43 and 63/82 VBVB and VBBB v Commission [1984] ECR 19 Case T-44/90 La Cinq v Commission [1992] ECR II-1 Case T-7/92 Asia Motor France v Commission [1993] ECR II-669 Case 185/83 University of Groningen [1984] ECR 3623 Case 203/85 Nicolet v Hauptzollamt Frankfurt an Main-Flughafen [1986] ECR 2049 Case 167/88 Association Générale des Producteurs de Blé v ONIC [1989] ECR 1653 Joined Cases C-121/91 and C-122/91 CT Control v Commission [1993] ECR I-3873 Case 42/84 Remia and Others v Commission [1985] ECR 2545 Joined Cases 142 and 156/84 BAT and Reynolds v Commission [1987] ECR 4487 Case C-225/91 Matra v Commission [1993] ECR I-3203 Case 310/85 Deufil v Commission [1987] ECR Case C-301/87 France v Commission [1990] ECR I-307 Case C-142/87 Belgium v Commission [1990] ECR I-959 Case C-303/88 Italy v Commission [1991] ECR I-1433


	Plný text: Fulltext:		Ne

Fakta:
Ladbroke, a Belgian company which carries on business taking bets at fixed odds in Belgium on horse-races run abroad, lodged a complaint with the Commission against the French and Belgian PMUs (Pari Mutuel Urbain; the economic interest groupings set up by the main racecourse undertakings) pursuant to Articles 81 (ex 85) and 82 (ex 86) of the Treaty and the provisions concerning State aid. The system of levies imposed on the activities of such undertakings was such that, according to Ladbroke, it constituted unlawful State aid for the Belgian PMU, distorting competition in the common market. Finally, Ladbroke maintained that the alleged State aid was new, unnotified aid, granted in breach of the Treaty.
The part of Ladbroke’s complaint concerning the alleged grant of unlawful State aid was rejected by the Commissioner for Competition on the ground that the agreement between the French and Belgian PMUs contained no aid within the meaning of the Treaty. Ladbroke then brought an action against the Commission’s decision to reject its complaint, which culminated in the present judgment.

Názor soudu a komentář:
Firstly, the Commission’s decision was challenged for its failure to state reasons. The Court rejected this plea. It declared that the summary of the reasons given by the Commission ”must as a whole be considered sufficient, for the purposes of Article 190 of the Treaty […] since it contains a summary of the facts and the legal considerations essential to the decision and indicates that the Commission’s refusal to accept the existence of aid within the meaning of Article 92(1) of the Treaty follows in substance from the finding that no advantage accrues to the Belgian PMU from the application of the agreement” (par. 32). It added that ”[a]lthough the reasons given in the contested decision do not always reveal all the Commission’s reasoning, they may be considered as sufficient, given that the person adopting a decision is not required to give all the relevant factual and legal details and that the question whether the statement of the reasons on which a decision is based is sufficient may be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to the context in which it was adopted and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question” (par. 33).
Regarding the merits of the case, the Court first examined the validity of the ground advanced by the Commission that there was no financial advantage for the Belgian PMU arising from the application of the agreement between the two PMUs. It concluded that ”[i]n the absence of any advantage for the alleged recipient of a measure prohibited by Article 92(1) of the Treaty, that provision of the Treaty must be inapplicable and the contested decision could not be vitiated by incorrect reasons or unlawfulness in so far as it refused to accept in this case that aid, within the meaning of the abovementioned provision of the Treaty, was being provided” (par. 54).
It then announced the well-known principle of limited judicial review in the field of competition law: ”According to the case-law of the Court of Justice […], in situations involving complex economic appraisals, judicial review must be limited to verifying whether the rules on procedure and on the statement of reasons have been complied with, whether the facts have been accurately stated and whether there has been any manifest error of appraisal or a misuse of powers” (par. 55).
The Court decided that ”the choice made by the French legislature which permitted the agreement at issue between the two PMUs to be made cannot in itself be impugned as contrary to Article 92(1) of the Treaty solely because application of the agreement at issue may have the effect of increasing the revenue not only of the French PMU on foreign races but also of the Belgian PMU on bets on horse-races run in Belgium which are normally taken by it directly” (par. 58).
The decisive argument used by the Court to conclude that the situation did not involved a State aid was the fact that the ”way in which the levy on bets on Belgian races is treated in France […] does not constitute a measure which derogates from the scheme of the general system but on the contrary accords with the general system, the main feature of which is, precisely, that amounts staked on races run abroad are subject to the statutory and fiscal retentions of each country in which the horse races concerned are run” (par. 70).
The application was accordingly dismissed as unfounded in its entirety.

Shrnutí (Summary of the Judgment):

Plný text judikátu (Entire text of the Judgment):