Competition and State Aid

Competition and State Aid, currently in its third edition, has been updated and integrated by eminent professors, EU law practitioners and lawyers of Greenberg Traurig Santa Maria, a prominent law firm that for years has distinguished itself for handling State aid cases before EU and Member State courts, and brilliantly captures the current state of the relation between State aid and EU inter-state competition. Since its first edition in 2007, this masterful book has established itself as the preeminent resource for practitioners who must interpret this vexed relationship on a case-by-case basis.

Drawing on numerous additional case profiles from the years following the first edition, the book merges deep familiarity with the relevant features of EU law and the expertise that the contributors have built in their everyday practice. Among the considerations connected with the ‘State aid phenomenon’ and the cases arising from it, the seventeen expert contributors explore and clarify the following issues and topics:
- the Commission’s increasing policymaker role;
- the importance of focusing on the actual elements that demonstrate the distortion (or the potential distortion) of competition and the existence of real prejudice to trade;
- exceptions, General Block Exemption Regulation and the Temporary Frameworks;
- State aid procedural rules;
- the principles of legitimate expectations, legal certainty, and proportionality as the discriminating elements of recovery orders;
- the relevance of internal tax procedures;
- rights of defence of undertakings involved in State aid proceedings;
- the locus standi of private parties (aid recipients and their competitors) before the EU courts;
- cooperation and conflict between the Commission and national courts on State aid matters;
- State aid and insolvency proceedings;
- National Recovery and Resiliency Plans in the framework of State aid rules;
- differences and interplay between State aid rules and the new Foreign Subsidies Regulation;
- State aid in the United Kingdom following Brexit; and
- State aid rules in specific sectors (e.g., agriculture and fishery, banking and finance, digital transition, environment and energy, sport and transport).

As in the previous editions, the overall approach is eminently pragmatic, laying emphasis on the procedure before the Commission, EU courts, and national courts. Given the contributors' expert knowledge in navigating a diverse range of relevant situations from various perspectives, the book's credibility is beyond question. It is certain to be of great value to practitioners in all EU Member States, as well as to economists, policymakers, and jurists dealing with European law at all levels.