Reimbursement: The ECJ holds that national judges have a duty to circumvent the rules relating to the burden of proof in order to ensure the effectiveness of State Aid control(Laboratoires Boiron)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. – ECJ, September 7, 2006, Laboratoires Boiron, Case C-526/04 The competitive relations which may exist between pharmaceutical companies and wholesalers of pharmaceutical specialities are not only relevant to antitrust proceedings before the Community courts but also to State aid proceedings before national courts. The judgment commented on here, which follows on from the Ferring judgment (ECJ, 22 Nov. 2001, Ferring, Case C-53/00, ECR p. I-9067), belongs to this second category. Taxation, competition and State aid in the pharmaceuticals sector The Court of Justice of the European Communities has once again ruled on questions relating to direct sales tax.