EU: EC refers Romania to ECJ for failure to recover illegal aid worth up to €92M

The European Commission has referred Romania to the European Court of Justice for failing to fully recover illegal State aid worth up to €92 million (US$104.8 million) from Viorel and Ioan Micula and their group of companies, as required by a 2015 Commission decision.

An arbitral award of December 2013, (Micula v. Romania) found that by revoking an investment incentive scheme in 2005, four years prior to its scheduled expiry in 2009, Romania had infringed a bilateral investment treaty between Romania and Sweden. Romania had abolished the scheme as part of the process of accession to the EU in order to comply with EU State aid rules in its national legislation.

The arbitral tribunal ordered Romania to compensate the claimants, Viorel and Ioan Micula, two investors with Swedish citizenship, for not having benefited in full from the scheme.

Following an in-depth investigation, on March 30, 2015, the Commission adopted a decision concluding that the compensation paid by Romania to the two investors and their companies was in breach of EU State aid rules and ordering Romania to recover the compensation from the beneficiaries.

The Commission found that by paying the compensation awarded to the claimants, Romania would grant them advantages equivalent to those provided for by the incompatible aid scheme.

EU State aid rules require that illegal State aid is recovered in order to remove the distortion of competition created by the aid.

The deadline for Romania to implement the Commission’s decision was July 31, 2015, in line with standard procedures, i.e. four months from the official notification of the Commission decision. Until the illegal aid is fully recovered, the beneficiaries in question continue to benefit from an illegal competitive advantage.

Romania has already recovered part of the illegal aid from the beneficiaries. However, more than three years after the Commission’s decision almost half of the original aid amount still remains to be recovered and there is still no prospect of an immediate full repayment of the outstanding aid.

Full Content: European Commission