EU court: Ryanair won't have to pay back subsidy
Recent Cases
Budget airline Ryanair may no longer have to pay back a euro4.5 million ($6.16 million) subsidy to the Belgian state after a court ruled Thursday against an EU order to refund the sum.
The European Union's appeals court said antitrust regulators made mistakes when they ordered Ryanair to pay back the public money it got to help it run flights from Charleroi airport in the southern Belgium region of Wallonia.
The EU Court of First Instance said the European Commission should have looked at whether the money from Belgian state companies could be seen as a normal market investment — and not state help.
Charleroi was granting the airline up to 90 percent of its costs over 15 years in a deal the Irish airline has mimicked with small airports across Europe.
Ryanair said the court ruling backed the airport's business model of attracting business with low charges for favored airlines. It called on regulators to drop similar subsidy investigations at eight other airports that Ryanair uses.
Ryanair Holdings PLC, Europe's largest low-cost carrier, triggered a revolution in air travel by offering bargain fares that saw millions more Europeans take to the skies — even if that meant an hour-long trip from a regional airport to their city destination.
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.