Howrey Advises on Commission’s Approval of €57 Million Training Aid

Brussels, December 3, 2009 – The European Commission has announced that is has authorised, under the EC Treaty’s rules on state aid, a grant of €57 million for a training program at a plant of Ford Romania SA.  It is the highest amount of training aid ever approved by the Commission, and the first time in the automotive industry that the full amount of requested training aid was accepted.  A team of Howrey lawyers in Brussels represented Ford of Europe during nearly two years of investigation.

The Commission found that the aid supporting Ford’s plan to offer an extensive training program to its employees at the Craiova car plant in Romania over a period of five years is in line with EU rules on training aid because it is targeted at redressing a verified market failure – underinvestment in training and, therefore, is appropriate as policy instrument. The Commission imposed some conditions regarding the payment of the aid and reporting and monitoring requirements, but made no objections to the original notification.

Howrey has been acting as advisor to Ford of Europe in numerous state aid cases since October 2007.  The latest training aid decision in one of many successful matters in which Howrey got the firm approval for: €143 million plus another €5 million investment aids, €600 million guarantees – and finally €57 million training aids.

The overall amount of the costs for the training programme is €185 million – €128M paid by Ford and €57M by the authorities. Some nine thousand employees will be trained over five years.

Team of advisors
Martina Maier, Howrey partner in Brussels, acted as lead advisor to Ford together with former Howrey partner Michael Schuette, now practising under Michael Schuette Law, and with the assistance of April Pelin, associate at the Brussels Howrey office.

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