On Methods Used to Check Compensation for Additional Costs Generated by a Policy of Selling Below Cost in the Door-To-Door Parcel Delivery Sector

Abstract

Case C-399/08 P European Commission v. Deutsche Post AG [2010], not yet published. -- 1. The Commission is not entitled to assume that State resources constitute an advantage when it fails to examine whether: (i) the total amount of those resources exceeds the total amount of the net additional costs incurred by an undertaking providing an SGEI; (ii) that undertaking has other net additional costs associated with the provision of an SGEI for which it has the right to claim compensation. -- 2. The use of a method different from that arising from Altmark Trans is justified only when the Commission is prevented, for objective reasons, from undertaking an examination of the information provided by a Member State. -- 3. Even if the General Court is wrong in law when it examines information that was not subject to any analysis in the Commission’s decision, this did not affect the validity of its foregoing finding on the illegality of the contested decision (author’s headnotes).