Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveil- lance and Court Agreement, ‘the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid. […]. The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’. Where the final decision of the Authority is negative, i.e. the aid is found to be incompatible with the functioning of the EEA Agreement, any aid paid out in breach of the standstill obliga- tion in Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement will be subject to a recovery order by the Authority.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveil- lance and Court Agreement, ‘the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid (…). The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’. Title number 4/165 and title numbers 2/70 and 2/32 have been sold under legally binding sales contracts and the titles have been transferred in the land register. The measures must there- fore be deemed to have been put into effect. As for the sale of title numbers 1/152, 1/301 and 1/630 to Grunnsteinen, the titles have not yet been transferred in the land register. However, a legally binding contract has been entered into, from which the municipal authorities cannot withdraw without incurring financial consequences. Thus, no further formal measures are required for the buyer to receive the economic benefit of the transaction, and it must therefore be deemed to have been put into effect.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveil- lance and Court Agreement, ‘the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid. […]. The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’. The State Aid Guidelines, Chapter on State Aid elements in sales of land and buildings by public authorities, states inter alia that the EFTA States should notify any sale of land and buildings by public authorities that was not concluded on the basis of an open and unconditional bidding procedure and any sale that was, in the absence of such procedure, conducted at less than market value. The Norwegian authorities did not notify the sale of Lista air base to the Authority. If the doubts of the Authority as to the sale below market price were confirmed, this would constitute State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agree- ment. In that case the Norwegian authorities would not have respected their obligations pursuant to Article 1(3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement. Furthermore, the Norwegian authorities have also indicated that the rent paid under the LILAS agreement was below market value, which could result in some elements of State aid being involved prior to the signing of the sales agreement. If such were the case, the rent at lower than market value was not noti- fied to the Authority. This would also constitute a breach of the Norwegian authorities' obligations pursuant to Article 1(3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3, ‘the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid. […] The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1 (3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement, ‘the EFTA Surveil- lance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid (…). The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’. The Authority considers the aid to the Hurtigruten companies to be new aid within the meaning of Article 1 c) in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement. This implies that the compensation should have been notified to the Authority, according to Article 1 (3) in Part I and Article 2 in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement, and should not have been put into effect until the Authority approved the compensation. The Norwegian authorities, however, decided to grant the compensa- tion and not to notify it to the Authority. The compensation is therefore considered as ‘unlawful aid’ within the meaning of Article 1 f) in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement and, thus, possibly subject to recovery.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveil- lance and Court Agreement, “the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid. […]. The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision”. The Norwegian authorities have not notified the Authority of any of the measures taken in relation to the transfer of the activities of the Production Department to Mesta AS. Therefore, in the event that the Authority comes to the conclusion that Mesta AS has received State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement the Norwegian authorities will be considered not to have respected their notification obli- gation pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement. The grant of State aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) of the EEA Agreement which has not been notified constitutes unlawful State aid within the meaning of Article 1(f) in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement. It follows from Article 14 in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveil- lance and Court Agreement that the Authority shall decide that unlawful aid which is incompatible with the State aid rules under the EEA Agreement must be recovered from the benefici- aries unless it would be contrary to a general principle of law.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement, „the EFTA Surveil- lance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid. […]. The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision”. The Norwegian authorities have not notified any measure relating to the funding of airline pilot education to the Authority. In particular, while the loan from Troms County may have been granted in accordance with the duly authorised Regional Loan Scheme, writing off that loan cannot be considered to fall within the conditions of the authorisation. The Authority therefore concludes that, in the event that the contested funding does indeed constitute aid within the meaning of Article 61(1) EEA, the Norwegian authorities did not respect their obligations pursuant to Article 1(3) in Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement.
Procedural requirements. The Norwegian authorities did not notify the renegotiation of the Hurtigruten Agreement to the Authority. The Authority therefore concludes that the Norwegian authorities have not respected their obligations pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3, ‘the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid (…). The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’. The Icelandic authorities notified Mortgage Loan Scheme by letter of 27 May 2009 (Event No 519720). However, the Rules of the Board of the Housing Financing Fund regarding the purchase of mortgage loans from financial undertakings entered into force already on 15 January 2009, and the first agreement on the purchase of mortgage loans was signed on 23 March 2009, i.e. before the Authority had taken a final decision thereon. The Authority therefore concludes that the Icelandic authorities have not respected their obligations pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3.
Procedural requirements. Pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveil- lance and Court Agreement, ‘the EFTA Surveillance Authority shall be informed, in sufficient time to enable it to submit its comments, of any plans to grant or alter aid. […]. The State concerned shall not put its proposed measures into effect until the procedure has resulted in a final decision’. By submitting notification of the two support measures, forwarded with a letter from the Icelandic Mission to the European Union dated 23 March 2007 (Event No 415003), the Icelandic authorities have complied with the notification require- ment. The Tonnage Tax Act has not yet entered into force. The Authority can therefore conclude that the Icelandic authorities have respected their obligations pursuant to Article 1(3) of Part I of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement. That being said, according to the notification, the entry into force of the new Tonnage Tax Act does not seem to be depen- dent upon a final positive decision from the Authority. An entry into effect before a final decision would be a breach of the standstill obligation. Any aid paid out in breach of the standstill obligation would be unlawful within the meaning of Article 1(f) in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agree- ment. If such aid is not found compatible with the functioning of the EEA Agreement, it would be subject to a recovery order from the Authority, see Article 14 in Part II of Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement.