Press Release: State aid: Commission welcomes phasing out of preferential tax regimes for offshore trading companies in Malta

The European Commission on 12 May 2006 welcomed the notification by the Maltese Government that it had formally accepted the Commission recommendation of 22 March 2006 to gradually abolish the existing aid schemes providing selective fiscal advantages in favour of International Trading Companies (ITC) and Companies with Foreign Income (CFI) by the end of 2010 at the latest. Malta’s acceptance rendered the abolition of the schemes legally binding and was to put an end to these long-lasting preferential regimes in Malta. The European Commission had found that the schemes violated the EC Treaty’s ban on state aid liable to distort competition.