9.9 Procedural aspects

Thus far, the substantive criteria of section 5 of the IAC were discussed. The IAC also gave guidelines on the procedural aspects. This was done in Annex V of the IAC and in section 5.7 of the IAC (though section 5.7 of the IAC contained nothing more than a reference to Annex V).

Annex V of the IAC provided the following: if all the criteria of section 5 of the IAC were met, the asset relief measure would be authorised for a period of 6 months, and conditional on the commitment to present either a restructuring plan or a viability review. The definitive authorisation was given in the Restructuring Decision. Just like a capital injection would be temporarily authorised by the Commission in a Rescue Decision when the measure was appropriate, necessary and proportionate, an asset relief measure would be temporarily authorised when it met the IAC-criteria. In its decisional practice, the Commission has clarified that even if not all IAC-criteria were met, asset relief measures could still be authorised for a period of 6 months.1 However, the Commission would open the formal investigation procedure when it had doubts whether the IAC-criteria were met.

This procedure was changed by the 2013 Banking Communication. In that regard, point 95 of the 2013 Banking Communication stipulates that point 47 and Annex 5 of the Impaired Assets Communication are withdrawn. As set out in section 8.1.2, the two-stage compatibility-assessment has effectively been abandoned for a one-stage compatibility-assessment. This means that impaired asset measures are immediately assessed as restructuring aid – instead of first being temporarily approved as rescue aid. It should be stressed that the 2013 Banking Communication only changes the procedural aspects of the IAC; the substantive criteria of section 5 of the IAC remain unchanged.