“And yet my SKY shall not want”*: European General Court finds for Murdoch, orders Berlusconi’s Mediaset to repay state aid granted by Berlusconi’s government

Posted on June 15, 2010 | Filed Under competition/mergers/state aid 

From a purely legal viewpoint, it seems to be quite a basic vanilla state aid case: a member state grants subsidies to consumers to buy products, favouring a particular enterprise over its competitors. The Commission then receives complaints by the competitors, examines the measure and finds that the subsidies, which had not been notified to the Commission, constitute state aid and have to be repaid. Then the (major) beneficiary files action at the EU General Court to get the Commission decision annulled (and does not succeed).

But as the aid in question was handed out by a Berlusconi government, favouring (indirectly) Berlusconi’s media conglomerate Mediaset over (amongst others) its rival Sky Italia, media have referred to it as a “media tycoon battle”. The judgment given today by the General Court in the Case C-177/07 Mediaset SpA v. Commission confirms the Commission decision of 24 January 2007 (case site). If you like personalisation, you can call it a victory for Murdoch - his Sky Italia had filed complaints with the Commission and intervened in the Court proceedings on the Commission side - over his rival Berlusconi.

I don’t think the judgment would attract all that much interest if it weren’t for the involved parties, and I don’t think there is anything extraordinary to it in points of law. But the General Court seems to be very aware of potential media interest in the case: it is rare that for a General Court judgment there is a press release in seven languages from the Court, and equally rare that the judgment is available on the same day in probably pretty much all EU languages  (I have not checked all of them, but it is available in Maltese, Bulgarian, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Hungarian, so I guess all efforts have been taken to ensure broad media coverage around the European Union).

But of course it is nice to read that - I am paraphrasing - a Berlusconi company should not have trusted in the legality of the aid a Berlusconi government has shelled out (in the judgment, it is worded a little bit different: “A diligent business operator should have known not only that the measure at issue was not technologically neutral, but also that it had not been notified to the Commission and had not been authorised.”)

*) Shakespeare, King Henry V, Act III, Scene 7 (capitalization added)

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