South Tees Development Corporation
Dear Competition,
The UK government was subject to the EU’s State aid rules until Brexit and cases up to this point remain within the competence of the European Commission to enforce.
The UK media has reported on what has been called the “Teesworks Scandal”. This matter involves a transfer of shares in South Tees Development Corporation and a generous land deal brokered by a public authority, Tees Valley Combined Authority, for the benefit of two multi millionaire property developers. The main transactions occurred whilst the European Commission had competence and state aid issues have been flagged in a report (see 1 below) which was commissioned by the UK government.
Please provide:
1. Confirmation that the European Commission has requested information from the UK / Tees Valley Combined Authority on this matter.
2. The file number for the investigation.
Yours faithfully,
Stan Doyle
33 Glenpatrick, Carrick on Shannon, Eire, N41 AX02
1. Tees Valley Review commissioned by UK government, 2023 published January 2024
Dear Mr. Doyle,
Thank you very much for writing to the Commission services for Competition ("DG COMP"), requesting some information concerning a potential investigation by DG COMP on an alleged State aid issue during the transfer of shares in South Tees Development Corporation in the UK. More specifically you requested the following:
1. Confirmation that the European Commission has requested information from the UK / Tees Valley Combined Authority on this matter.
2. The file number for the investigation.
After having studied your request and looked into our files, we can confirm to you that no such investigation has been undertaken by DG COMP at this moment.
As a consequence, there is no file number for an investigation of the current alleged measure.
We hope this will be useful for you and thank you again for contacting DG COMP.
Kind regards, International Relations Unit
Gabriel Syme hat eine Nachricht hinterlassen ()
It is worth taking a moment to consider the wider legal implications of the European Commission’s current position on this case. They’ll probably be picked up in legal textbooks in future.
The UK was officially subject to EU law until 1 January 2020, but this suggests the UK was subject to a lighter level of state aid law than EU Member States, in particular the General Court decision in Eesti Pagar AS v Ettevõtluse Arendamise Sihtasutus didn’t apply, in particular the statement that “EU law must be interpreted as meaning that, where a national authority undertakes on its own initiative to recover aid which it has wrongly granted under Regulation No 800/2008, it is the duty of that authority to claim interest from the beneficiary of that aid in accordance with the rules of the applicable national law”.
A Brexit Bonus indeed!