EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

on unlawful state aid contained in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the European Commission is bound only by not exceeding its powers and by thoroughly explaining the circumstances of each case. However, it should be remembered that European Commission has extensive powers in this area. Therefore, it seems reasonable to consider that the thesis put forward at the beginning of the Article is true. In most cases, public support for a specific group of entities (in this case sports clubs) most often constitutes illegal public aid referred to in Article 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Support for sports enterprises obviously affects trade–it has been repeatedly emphasized in the jurisprudence of the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU that professional sports clubs are considered enterprises and are subject to state aid control, which in itself implies an impact on this exchange. It is also obvious that a detailed analysis of an individual case is necessary each time, which is required by the very detailed and strict European Union and national legal regulations in force. The granting of a specific amount of support or relief may not constitute compensation for state actions. Equally important are the considerations to why the legal instruments used by public authorities to support sports clubs are an example of border law. Undoubtedly, the issue of applying private law in the public sector requires undertaking interdisciplinary research. We are dealing here with issues on the border of various legal disciplines, and we should not, a priori, be limited to the achievements of one of the legal disciplines (Szczepaniak, 2016). In the case of the support methods discussed in this paper, we are dealing, among others, with instruments that are characteristic of civil law, administrative law, or European Union law. In the opinion of the author of this text, it is impossible to precisely delineate the boundaries for each of the instruments used, which justifies the statement that legal solutions used by public authorities in support of sports clubs are an example of legal solutions from the border law (the border between public law and private law). References [1] Bacon, K. (2009). European Community Law of State Aid , Oxford University Press. [2] Craven, R. (2014). Football and State aid: too important to fail? International Sports Law Journal , Vol 14, pp. 205–217. [3] Heropolitańska, I. (2018) Prawne zabezpieczenia spłaty wierzytelności , Wolters Kluwer Poland. [4] Jaworska-Dębska, B. (2008). Umowy we współczesnej administracji (eds.). Umowy w administracji , Kolonia Limited, pp. 13–15.

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