The EU General Court agrees with the Commission that Germany has granted incompatible aid to certain consumers of electricity who have been exempted from network charges (AZ)

Compensatory Payments and State Resources* Introduction The Court of Justice has stressed repeatedly that any resource over which the state can exercise control becomes a state resource, regardless of whether it is managed by a public authority or a private entity. Member States, however, keep inventing novel and complicated arrangements in which mandated payments by some undertakings to other undertakings are allegedly not under the control of the state and therefore do not fall within the scope of Article 107(1) TFEU. On 6 October 2021, the General Court, in case T-196/19, AZ v European Commission, examined such an arrangement. In its judgment, the Court agreed with the Commission that found Germany to have granted incompatible aid to certain consumers of electricity who had been