Pastor-Merchante, Fernando; Monti, Giorgio --- "The functions of national courts in the private enforcement of State aid law" [2020] ELECD 350; in Parcu, L. Pier; Monti, Giorgio; Botta, Marco (eds), "EU State Aid Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020) 121

Book Title: EU State Aid Law

Editor(s): Parcu, L. Pier; Monti, Giorgio; Botta, Marco

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: The functions of national courts in the private enforcement of State aid law

Author(s): Pastor-Merchante, Fernando; Monti, Giorgio

Number of pages: 20

Abstract/Description:

The starting point of this chapter is the observation that State aid law assigns different tasks to national courts: they are in charge of enforcing the standstill clause of Article 108(3) TFEU (standalone enforcement); they are also in charge of enforcing Commission decisions in this area (follow-on enforcement); finally, they are also in charge of monitoring compliance with the de minimis and block exemption regulations (a special form of standalone enforcement, insofar as it calls for a more sophisticated analysis of the measures under scrutiny, based on the criteria defined by secondary legislation). Thus, contrary to what is suggested by the buzzword ‘private enforcement’, national courts play different functions within the system of State aid control. The purpose of this chapter is to reflect on how the different ‘functions’ that national courts serve affect the way in which they discharge their task in terms of (i) the margin of discretion that they have, (ii) the type of remedies at their disposal and (iii) the way in which they administer these remedies (for example, the different methods that they use to calculate damages).