Spanish firms notched up a new win in a clash with European Union antitrust regulators over the legality of tax breaks for domestic companies, including Banco Santander SA and Telefonica SA, who bought stakes in foreign firms, according to Bloomberg.
The EU General Court, in a ruling on Wednesday annulled the European Commission’s October 2014 decision to outlaw the aid.
The case is part of a larger crackdown by EU regulators that started more than a decade ago, when EU regulators started looking into complaints that the Spanish measures unfairly funded a buying spree by big national companies.
The commission’s investigations led to three separate decisions, including one in 2014 that’s at issue in this case, and orders for Spain to recoup the fiscal advantages from the concerned firms.
The EU’s top court in 2021 sided with the commission in one of the three probes, validating regulators’ findings that the tax breaks violated the bloc’s state aid rules.
The cases are: T-826/14 Spain, T-12/15 Banco Santander and Santusa, T-158/15 Abertis Infraestructuras and Abertis Telecom Satélites, T-252/15 Ferrovial and others, T-253/15 Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona, T-256/15 Telefónica, T-257/15 Arcelormittal Spain Holding, T-258/15 Axa Mediterranean, T-260/15 Iberdrola v. Commission.