Official Journal of the European Union

EN

C series

—

C/2025/3077

10.6.2025

(Case T-253/25)

(C/2025/3077)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Bionext SA (Leudelange, Luxembourg) (represented by: S. Engelen and D. Murray, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—annul the contested decision;

—order the Commission to pay all of the costs of the present proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action against European Commission Decision C(2024) 8871 final of 18 December 2024 on aid SA.100547 (2018/FC) – Luxembourg relating to the alleged State aid granted to several undertakings in the context of COVID-19 Large Scale Testing, the applicant relies on three pleas in law.

First plea in law, alleging the failure of the Commission to fulfil its obligation to carry out its preliminary examination diligently and impartially. First, the Commission failed to fulfil its obligation to carry out its preliminary examination diligently and impartially by classifying as non-economic the activities carried out under the ‘COVID-19 Large Scale Trading’ (‘LST’), while that State itself classified it as economic. Second, the Commission failed to fulfil its obligation to carry out its preliminary examination diligently and impartially by not waiting for the adoption of the special report of the Court of Auditors, which it nevertheless knew was in the process of being finalised and which would have lead it to identify serious difficulties as to the existence of economic benefits in the context of the LST.

Second plea in law, alleging the manifest error in assessment and the infringement of Article 107 TFEU made by the Commission. First, the Commission made a manifest error of assessment and infringed Article 107 TFEU by classifying the services provided under the LST as non-economic, ignoring the factual and legal elements that have long been enshrined in European State aid case-law. Second, the Commission made a manifest error of assessment and infringed Article 107 TFEU by considering – despite the applicant's clear and repeated warnings – that it was relevant to compare the prices charged by Laboratoires Réunis (‘LR’) with the fee scale of the Caisse Nationale de Santé (National Health Fund) without taking into account the pooling and reduction of charges from which LR benefited as a result of the subsidies obtained from the State.

Third plea in law, alleging the failure of the Commission to fulfil its obligation to state reasons. The applicant submits that the Commission failed to fulfil its obligation to state reasons in so far as it did not, in the contested decision, respond, – in a sufficiently substantiated manner where appropriate – to the arguments put forward by the applicant in its complaint.

—

ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3077/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

—