PPC wins court battle against Mytilineos on state aid

Public Power Corporation (PPC) on Wednesday won its court battle against Athens-listed group Mytilineos after Europe’s second-highest court rejected a ruling by European Union antitrust regulators that its rival and biggest customer had not benefited from illegal state aid.

PPC and Mytilineos had agreed to resort to Greek arbitration for their dispute over an electricity supply tariff which replaced a preferential tariff that Mytilineos had enjoyed in the past.

An arbitration tribunal fixed the energy tariff applicable to Mytilineos in 2013 but PPC filed two complaints with the EU’s executive against that ruling, saying that the arbitration had granted Mytilineos unlawful state aid.

The Commission said that the arbitration award did not involve state aid to Mytilineos, prompting PPC to bring the case before the Luxembourg-based General Court, which issued a ruling on Wednesday.

“Τhe General Court annuls the decision by which the Commission found that an arbitration award setting an allegedly preferential tariff for electricity did not involve the granting of an advantage” to Mytilineos, the General Court of the European Union said in a statement.

The court added that the Commission had to examine “diligently, sufficiently and comprehensively” through complex economic and technical assessments whether there had been state aid.

The Commission can appeal to the EU Court of Justice, Europe’s highest. [Reuters]