Judgment of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 27 February 2014 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Bundesfinanzhof — Germany) — HaTeFo GmbH v Finanzamt Haldensleben

(Case C-110/13) (1)

((Reference for a preliminary ruling - Company law - Recommendation 2003/361/EC - Definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises - Types of enterprises taken into consideration in calculating staff numbers and financial amounts - Linked enterprises - Notion of ‘group of natural persons acting jointly’))

2014/C 112/17

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Bundesfinanzhof

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: HaTeFo GmbH

Defendant: Finanzamt Haldensleben

Re:

Request for a preliminary ruling — Bundesfinanzhof — Interpretation of the fourth subparagraph of Article 3(3) of the Annex to the Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003 concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (OJ 2003 L 124, p. 36) — Types of enterprises taken into consideration in calculating staff numbers and financial amounts — Linked enterprises — Notion of group of natural persons acting jointly.

Operative part of the judgment

The fourth subparagraph of Article 3(3) of the Annex to Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003 concerning the definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises must be interpreted as meaning that enterprises may be regarded as ‘linked’ for the purposes of that article where it is clear from the analysis of the legal and economic relations between them that, through a natural person or a group of natural persons acting jointly, they constitute a single economic unit, even though they do not formally have any of the relationships referred to in the first subparagraph of Article 3(3) of that annex.

Natural persons who work together in order to exercise an influence over the commercial decisions of the enterprises concerned which precludes those enterprises from being regarded as economically independent from each other are to be regarded as acting jointly for the purposes of the fourth subparagraph of Article 3(3) of that annex. Whether that condition is satisfied depends on the circumstances of the case and is not necessarily conditional on the existence of contractual relations between those persons or a finding that they intended to circumvent the definition of a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise within the meaning of that recommendation.

(1)  OJ C 147, 25.5.2013.