The Legal Impacts of COVID-19 in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry

37 separate report on the exact schemes launched under the Temporary Framework decisions, including, of course, umbrellas. 150 6.2. Aid Approved Directly under Article 107(3)(b) TFEU The Commission, exceptionally, authorised crisis aid measures that did not perfectly comply with the rules of the Temporary Framework. In these cases, the Commission approved the measure directly under Article 107(3)(b), with reference to the principles of the Temporary Framework in general. 151 The SA.60521 152 case involved such a scheme for Austrian package travel organisers and “facilitators of linked travel services”. The issue to be handled through the scheme was that due to the pandemic and the associated loss of revenue, Austrian travel organisers did not have access to the bank guarantees necessary to secure the insurance coverage they legally needed to run their business. Through the temporary measure, a state guarantee limited in time, these businesses could regain access to the insurance they required and their customers were protected against their bankruptcy. The key difference between Temporary Framework rules and the scheme was the extent of the state guarantee, which was 100% of the liability of package travel organisers and facilitators of linked travel services (under Section 3.2 of the Temporary Framework, guarantees are capped at 90% of the secured loans). In its decision, however, the Commission recognised that this scenario is not perfectly analogous with the typical scenario of Section 3.2 of the Temporary Framework, when a State guarantee is taken out as collateral to a bank loan for liquidity purposes), and as all the remaining relevant conditions of Section 3.2 of the Temporary Framework were met (including pricing, undertaking in difficulty exclusion etc.), the Commission consented to the measure. 150 This reporting obligation is defined in point 90 of the Temporary Framework as effective from 28 January 2021. 151 From April 2020 up until 1 March 2021, 18 such decisions were adopted by the Commission, a small fraction Temporary Framework based decisions. Source: https://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/what_is_new/State_aid_decisions_TF_and_107_2b_107_3b _107_3c.pdf ( accessed on 5 March 2020). 152 Commission decision C(2021) 849 final of 4 February 2021 (SA.60251 (2020/N) COVID-19: State guarantee to package travel organisers and facilitators of linked travel services).