Judgment_paragraph 61 · Associação dos Refinadores de Açúcar Portugueses (ARAP), Alcântara Refinarias - Açúcares SA and Refinarias de Açúcar Reunidas SA (RAR) v Commission of the European Communities (C-321/99 P)

61However, the background to the present dispute is not the same. It is clear from the documents on the Court file that the individual tax reliefs at issue were examined by the Commission, which had received complaints about them from the appellants. The Commission took the view that those measures did comply with the two conditions laid down by the decision of 3 July 1991 for them to be classified as existing aid, exempt as such from formal notification and from examination of their compatibility with Articles 92 and 93 of the Treaty. In taking that position, the Commission did not confine itself to recording that the individual measures at issue were in the nature of existing aid. Taking the view that those measures were covered by the decision of 3 July 1991, it also decided not to open the procedure provided for by Article 93(2) of the Treaty. The appellants, who could have intervened as complainants in such a procedure if the Commission had opened it, would be deprived of that guarantee if they did not have the option of challenging before the Court of First Instance the assessment made by the Commission (see, to that effect, Case C-198/91 Cook v Commission [1993] ECR I-2487, paragraphs 20 to 24).