Press Release: State aid: Commission welcomes phasing out of tax benefits for Offshore Exempt Companies in Gibraltar

The European Commission on 18 February 2005 welcomed the notification by the UK Government that it had formally accepted the Commission recommendation of 19 January 2005 (see IP/05/80) to abolish the Exempt Company tax regime in Gibraltar by the end of 2010. The UK's acceptance rendered the abolition of the regime legally binding on the United Kingdom and was to put an end to the last offshore scheme in Gibraltar. The European Commission had found that the scheme violated the EC Treaty's ban on state aid liable to distort competition