Advocate General Jaaskinen’s Opinion of 24 March 2010 (case C-399/08 P) concurred with the General Court’s (GC) annulment of a European Commission 2002 decision finding that Deutsche Post had been in receipt of unauthorised State aid. In 2002, the Commission ordered Germany to recover some €572m from the postal firm after finding that it had been over-compensated for providing services in the general interest. Deutsche Post appealed this decision. In 2008, the GC ruled that the Commission had neglected to properly examine whether the State payments had really exceeded the company’s costs of providing these services. Since the Commission had failed to demonstrate that Deutsche Post had gained a special competitive advantage from the measures, the decision was annulled. Advocate General Jaaskinen reviewed the Commission’s method of assessment and concluded that the GC’s findings had been broadly correct. In not analysing the difference between the benefits received by Deutsche Post and the costs it incurred in providing its services, the Commission had not shown that the company had gained an advantage from the aid. Therefore, the GC was right to have annulled the decision