No Clarity Provided – European Courts Review the Concept of Indirect State Aid

I. Introduction On 28 July 2011, the Court of Justice (“ECJ”) rejected Mediaset’s appeal against the General Court’s (“GC”) judgment of 15 June 20101, in which the GC held that a subsidy paid by the Italian state to pay-TV subscribers for the purchase of digital terrestrial decoders constitutes State aid, which is inconsistent with European State aid law.2 As the subsidy was limited to terrestrial decoders, and did not include satellite decoders, it was considered to favour terrestrial pay-TV broadcasters offering pay-TV services (“Terrestrial Broadcasters”) and digital cable pay-TV operators (“Digital Cable Operators”). With its judgment, the GC confirmed a decision of t...