The Manager Director of Hellas Gold, Mr. Michael Theodorakopoulos, made a statement regarding the reports on the recent decision of the General Court of the European Commission for the return of the “illegal state aid” by the company:
“Hellas Gold SA, has a settled principle of fully respecting the decisions of Justice, whether adopted at a national level or at European level.
The European Commission, after an anonymous complaint in 2006, decided that there had been “illegal state aid” during the transfer of the Cassandra Mines in 2003 by the Greek State to Hellas Gold, amounting to 15.3 million Euros. Both the Greek government and our company appealed to the General Court of the European Union challenging the accuracy of this decision. Nevertheless, the General Court decided otherwise on 09.12.2015.
The company still has its reservations about the validity of the decision of the European Commission and is considering submitting an appeal to the plenary of the European Court for its annulment. It should be noted that for technical reasons the decision of the General Court has not yet been officially served by the Secretariat of the Court. Once we receive it, we will study it and we will proceed with the legal action.
Beyond that, it should be clarified that today there is no issue of recovery of the above amount by the Greek State, as this has been fully paid by our company since the summer of 2014, under EU legislation, a total amount of 21 million Euros including interest.”
