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Case C-81/10 P
Judgment of 8 December 2011
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Third Chamber)2
8 December 20113
(Appeal - State aid - France Télécom's business tax regime - Concept of 'aid' - Legitimate expectations
- Limitation period - Obligation to state reasons - Principle of legal certainty)
In Case C81/10 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 10 February 2010,
France Télécom SA, [...] appellant,
the other parties to the proceedings being:
European Commission, [...] defendant at first instance,
French Republic, [...] applicant at first instance,
THE COURT (Third Chamber), [...] gives the following
Judgment
1. By its appeal, France Télécom SA ('FT') seeks to have set aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (now 'the General Court') in Joined Cases T427/04 and T17/05 France and France Télécom v Commission [2009] ECR II4315 ('the judgment under appeal'), by which that court dismissed the action for annulment of Commission Decision 2005/709/EC of 2 August 2004 concerning State aid paid by France to FT (OJ 2005 L 269, p. 30) ('the contested decision').
The facts of the dispute
2. In the judgment under appeal, the General Court set out the legal background and the facts of the dispute before it as follows: '[...]
2. Liability of FT to business tax
General business tax regime
16. Business tax is a local tax, the rules of which are laid down by statute and codified in the General Tax Code.
17. [...] business tax is payable each year by natural or legal persons regularly pursuing a self-employed occupation as at 1 January.
18. [...] the imposition of business tax depends on the taxable person's ability to pay, which is assessed in accordance with economic criteria on the basis of the extent of the business activities engaged in by the taxable person in the territory of the recipient body.
19. It follows that the business tax is not based on the profit made by the undertaking's business, but, at the material time, on a proportion of the value of the production factors - capital and labour - used by the taxable person in each municipality in which the tax is established.
20....