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https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-09/cp200116en.pdf

General Court of the European Union

PRESS RELEASE No 116/20

Luxembourg, 23 September 2020
Judgment in Joined Cases T-515/13 RENV Espagne v Commission and T-719/13 RENVError! Reference source not found. Lico Leasing, SA and Pequeños y Medianos Astilleros Sociedad de Reconversión, SA v Commission
 
The Spanish tax system applicable to certain finance lease agreements entered into by shipyards constitutes an aid scheme
The unlawful State aid granted under that system must be recovered from the beneficiaries

In 2006, the European Commission received a number of complaints concerning the application of ‘the Spanish Tax Lease System’ (‘the STL system’) to certain finance lease agreements in so far as it allowed shipping companies to benefit from a 20-30% price reduction when purchasing ships constructed by Spanish shipyards. According to the Commission, the objective of the STL system was to grant tax advantages to economic interest groupings ('EIGs') and the investors participating in them, which then passed on part of those benefits to the shipping companies that bought a new ship.

In a decision1 adopted in July 2013, the Commission found that the STL system constituted State aid2 in the form of a selective tax advantage that was partially incompatible with the internal market. In so far as the aid scheme had been implemented since 1 January 2002 in breach of the notification obligation,3 the Commission ordered the national authorities to recover the aid from the investors, that is to say, the members of the EIGs.
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