Concept of state aid: The Court of Justice confirms that the qualification of aid may depend on factors unrelated to the regime in question, that a specific charge imposed on an advantage can only be relevant for the classification as an aid where this specific charge which is different from and unconnected with the aid in question, that the purported complexity of a tax regime cannot give rise to any legitimate expectation, that the annual nature of business tax justifies the date of the award of the aid at issue, and that the principle of legal certainty does not require the Commission to fix the exact amount of the aid to be recovered (France Télécom)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. CJEU, 8 December 2011, France Télécom v Commission, Case C-81/10 P By judgment of 30 November 2009, the Court of First Instance dismissed an action for annulment brought by France Télécom and France against the Commission's decision of 2 August 2004 concerning the business tax derogation scheme (CFI, judgment of 30 November 2009, French Republic, and France Télécom SA v Commission, Joined Cases T-427/04 and T-17/05, [2009] ECR II-4315, p. II-4315). Decision 2005/709/EC, OJEC No L 269 of 14 October 2005, p. 30). To sum up, according to the Commission, two successive and distinct tax schemes had been applied to France Télécom from 1991 to 2003 inclusive: