European Commission v Government of Gibraltar (and related appeal)

In European Commission v Government of Gibraltar (and related appeal) (ECJ Case C-106/09) the Government of Gibraltar had (in 2002) proposed certain reforms to its corporate tax legislation under which certain companies would qualify as ‘exempt companies’ or ‘qualifying companies’. In 2004 the European Commission issued a ruling that the proposals constituted a ‘State aid’ within what is now Article 107 of the TFEU. The Court of First Instance annulled the ruling but the Commission appealed to the ECJ which reversed the CFI decision and upheld the Commission’s ruling holding that ‘a measure by which the public authorities grant certain undertakings favourable tax treatment which although not involving the transfer of State resources places the recipients in a more favourable financial position than other taxpayers amounts to State aid’. The Gibraltar government had not shown any justification for ‘the...