Press Release: State aid: European Commission refers Italy to Court for failure to respect Court ruling to recover illegal aid

The European Commission has decided to refer Italy to the Court of Justice for failure to implement a European Court of Justice decision ordering the recovery of illegal and incompatible state aid from utilities with a majority public capital holding. Although the relevant Court judgement dates back to 2006 and in spite of the progress recently made in the recovery, the Italian authorities have still not notified the Commission that the recovery has been successfully completed. Given that this is a referral to Court for failure to respect a previous Court ruling, the Commission has decided to ask the Court to impose a daily penalty payment €65.280 for each day after the second Court ruling until the infringement ends and a lump sum €7.140 per day for the period between the 2006 Court judgement and the second Court ruling. These payments would act as an incentive to ensure that the illegal aid were recovered rapidly from the beneficiaries.