The Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) handed down its judgment in the Commission’s action against Germany, and held that Germany had complied in full with an earlier judgment of the CJEU. Volkswagen, a German motor vehicle manufacturer, was turned into a public limited company in 1960 by a federal law, the “Volkswagen Law” (law on privatization of equity in the Volkswagenwerk limited company). When the Law was adopted, the Federal Republic of Germany (“Germany”) and the Land of Lower Saxony were the two main shareholders in Volkswagen, each holding 20 % of its capital. While Germany is no longer a shareholder in Volkswagen, the Land of Lower Saxony still has a shareholding of approximately 20 %. In 2005, the Commission brought an action before the CJEU against Germany, taking the view that certain provisions of the Volkswagen Law were contrary to, inter alia, the free movement of capital guaranteed by EU law. Those provisions allowed Germany and the Land of Lower Saxony each to appoint two members to the supervisory board, capped the voting rights of any shareholder to the number of votes conferred by a 20 % shareholding in the share capital, and a lower blocking minority which enabled a minority holding of only 20 % of the share capital to oppose important resolutions of the company whereas the German law on public limited companies requires 25 %. In 2007, the CJEU held that by maintaining in force these provisions, Germany had acted contrary to the free movement of capital. Germany then repealed the first two provisions, but maintained the provision on the lower blocking minority. According to the Commission, it followed from the CJEU’s judgment that each of those three provisions constituted an independent infringement of the freedom in question and thus brought a new action against Germany. The CJEU held that it was apparent from the 2007 judgment that the CJEU had not established that there had been a failure to fulfill obligations resulting from the provision relating to the lower blocking minority considered in isolation, but that there had been such a failure solely as regards the combination of that provision with the provision relating to the cap on voting rights. Consequently, the CJEU held that by repealing the two other provisions, and thereby putting an end to the combination, Germany had fulfilled the obligations that followed from the 2007 judgment. Therefore, the CJEU dismissed the action brought by the Commission in its entirety Source: Court of Justice of the European Union Press Release 22/10/2013