The Court of Justice of the European Union published on 1 March 2012 its judgment on the Case C-354/10, Commission v Greece, regarding the failure of the Greek State to effectively recover unlawful state aid. 
According to the judgment of the Court, the Greek State failed to comply with the obligations imposed upon it by the decision of the Commission 2008/723/EC of 18 July 2007. 
The Commission, in examining the State Aid case C 37/05 (ex NN 11/04), had found that the provisions of Law 3220/2004 allowing corporate taxpayers to create a tax exempt reserve constituted unlawful state aid and had ordered the Greek State to recover the aid that was unlawfully granted. Since the Greek State failed to do so within the prescribed time limits, the Court of Justice found that it breached the Commission decision ordering the recovery and imposed a fine on the Greek State.      

My paper on "The distortion of competition through discriminatory tax treatment and its consequences. How a cheap entrance ticket to the Casino can be very expensive" was published in the November 2011 issue of Business and Company Law Review (in Greek). 
The paper deals with the recently published decision of the European Commission C 16/2010 in which it was concluded that the cheaper entrance fee established by law for certain Greek Casinos constitutes unlawful fiscal state aid. 
The paper presents the key points of the Commission decision and analyzes certain aspects of fiscal state aids as well as the responsibilities of enterprises receiving unlawful state aid and of their legal and tax advisors. 

The European Commission has updated and prolonged a set of temporary state aid control rules to assess public support to financial institutions during the crisis. The main provisions consist in explaining how to ensure that the State is adequately remunerated if – as is increasingly likely in the future - Member States decide to recapitalise their banks using instruments, such as ordinary shares, for which the remuneration is not fixed in advance. A revised methodology was also agreed concerning the remuneration of guarantees for banks' funding needs – the bulk of the support to date – to ensure the fees that banks pay reflect their intrinsic risk, rather than the risk related to the Member State concerned or the market as a whole. The rules will apply as long as required by market conditions.

European Commission, Press Release IP/11/1488.

European Commission, Press Release IP/11/635 of 24/5/2011 

Different taxation of casino entrance fees
In 2009 the Commission received a complaint alleging that the taxation of admissions in casinos in Greece is discriminatory and entails state aid in favour og the public casinos (C16/2010). Under Greek law admission tickets are taxed a uniform 80%, but the price of tickets which is regulated, is €6 for state-owned casinos whereas private ones are required to charge €15. This means that private casinos must pay a €12 admission tax per person (80% X 15) to the state, while public casinos (and also a single private casino exceptionally assimilated to the public ones) only pay €4.8 (80% X 6).