Contribution on the Amended Legal Status of the Greek Subsidy Law (pursuant to Law 3299/2004)
Note: The following remarks refer only to subsidies that were applied for and decided upon under Law 3299/04. For new applications, the provisions of Law 3908/2011 must be observed.
Companies whose investment plans were subject to the provisions of the Greek Investment Law N.3299/04 were previously prohibited from changing their corporate structure regarding partners or shares in any way from the time of inclusion until five years after the publication of the decision on the completion and commencement of the investment’s production operations. This resulted unambiguously from the provision of Article 10, Paragraph 1 of Law N.3299/2004.
Note: This article is also available as a Download in PDF format under the title Contribution on the Amended Legal Status of the Subsidy Law.
The previous regulation of Article 10, Paragraph 1 was explicitly repealed, however, in Article 37, Paragraph 9 of Law 3522/2006, and further modified in a more recent legislative amendment in 2008, specifically in Article 7, Paragraph 5 of Law N.3631/2008. According to the currently applicable provisions of Law N.3299/2004 (as amended), the corporate structure of the company can therefore be changed. Any change in the corporate structure of the investment carrier must simply be reported to the competent authorities. No official approval from the authorities is required.
It must be noted, however, that the size of the company is not changed when the change in the corporate structure is made. If it turns out upon completion of the investment that the investment carrier is no longer a small or medium-sized enterprise within the meaning of the provisions of Law N.3299/04 due to the change in the corporate structure, the subsidy amount will be reduced by the corresponding proportion.
Consequently, based on these legislative amendments, companies are given the opportunity to transfer their shares or even the entire company at any time—including after the applications for funding have already been made and submitted to the competent authorities.
(Status: August 2008. All information is provided without reservation or guarantee.)