The reclaiming of Corona emergency aid by the state of NRW was unlawful. This was decided by the Higher Administrative Court of NRW with judgments on March 17, 2023 (Ref.: 4 A 1986/22 et al.).
To mitigate the economic consequences of the Corona pandemic, the state of NRW launched an emergency aid program in the spring of 2020. In the meantime, the aid is being reclaimed at least partially. The Düsseldorf Administrative Court had already decided that the reclaims are not legal. The Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia has now confirmed this. The corresponding reclaim notices must therefore be revoked, explains the law firm MTR Legal Rechtsanwälte, which also advises on legal issues related to Corona. However, the OVG restricted that the state still has the option to issue new final notices and reclaim unused Corona aid.
To ensure the Corona aid could be distributed quickly in spring 2020, extensive checks on applications were initially waived. Later, the recipients were to declare income and expenses during the approval period in the so-called feedback procedure, and the authorities calculated the liquidity shortfall based on these declarations. Payments exceeding this shortfall were reclaimed.
The same was true for the three plaintiffs. Each received 9,000 euros as Corona emergency aid and was required to repay around 7,000 euros. They successfully fought back against this. The state did not adhere to the binding conditions in the approval notices, which stated that the Corona aid was solely meant to alleviate financial hardship due to the pandemic and, in particular, to bridge financial shortfalls. Therefore, the reclaims are unlawful, according to the OVG.
The feedback procedure had no basis in the approval notices. The information required therein was unsuitable for determining the amount of aid to be retained, according to the OVG. Recipients could also trust that the funds they received ‘to alleviate the financial hardships of the affected company or self-employed individual in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic’ or ‘to bridge liquidity shortfalls’ did not have to be repaid. If the recipients did not need the Corona aid during the approval period or only partially needed it, the state can issue new final notices and reclaim overpaid amounts, the OVG said.
MTR Legal Rechtsanwälte advises on legal issues related to Corona.
