Avis juridique important

61996B0155

European Court reports 1996 Page II-01655

Summary

Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation of a measure - Suspension of operation of a decision ordering recovery of aid - Conditions for granting - Serious and irreparable damage - Concept - Burden of proof (EC Treaty, Art. 185; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

The urgency of the adoption of interim measures must be considered by examining whether the implementation of the contested measures, prior to the intervention of the decision of the Community judicature on the main issue, is such as to give rise, for the party requesting the measures, to serious and irreparable damage which could not be put right if the contested decision were annulled or which, despite their interim nature, would be disproportionate to the defendant's interest in having the measures implemented, even when they are the subject of legal proceedings. It is for the applicant to prove that those conditions are satisfied.

An application for interim measures seeking suspension of the operation of a decision by which the Commission, finding that the sale of land at a price below its market value, concluded between the applicant local authority and an undertaking, constituted aid contrary to the Treaty, ordered that aid to be recovered by the Member State in question must be dismissed if the applicant has failed to adduce any convincing arguments to demonstrate the soundness of its contention that a risk of serious and irreparable damage would arise, in the first place, from the obligation under which it might find itself to institute legal proceedings against its contracting party to recover the alleged State aid and, second, from a possible fundamental variation of the contractual terms of the sale, or even the annulment of the contract, by the other contracting party.