The European Commission said Tuesday it will take Austria to court for failing to demand that an insurance company pay the difference between its bid for a state-owned bank and a higher bid from a rival.
EU regulators ruled last year that Grazer Weschselseitige, or GRAWE, paid an unfairly low price for Bank Burgenland when it was privatized last year.
They ordered Austria to demand repayment of the difference _ 41.5 million ($58 million) plus interest _ saying it was a hidden state subsidy that violated EU rules. They are now asking the European Court of Justice to force Austria to act under threat of daily fines.
The case was triggered by an Austrian-Ukrainian consortium's complaint that the Austrian government ignored its 155 million offer for Bank Burgenland in favor of the much lower 100.3 million bid from GRAWE.
Regulators said they had originally asked for the entire difference of the bid to be repaid _ 54.7 million _ but had reduced that because Austria argued that the two offers differed in several ways and that a smaller sum should be repaid.
