In Etat belge v Pantochim SA (Case C-19/19) (11 June) the CJEU ruled that a request from one member state (A) to another (B) for assistance in recovering a tax debt is not treated as a claim made by B and so does not acquire the status that a tax claim by B would have had.
The CJEU also considered the application of the language that ‘the claims to be recovered shall not necessarily benefit from the privileges accorded to similar claims arising in the member state in which the requested authority is situated.’ The CJEU ruled that the term ‘privilege’ is to be interpreted as any mechanism which results in the event of concurrent claims in the preferential payment of a claim and that a right of set off by state B should be treated as such a ‘privilege’. The application of article 10 of the Directive...
