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European State Aid Law - A Handbook By Dr. Martin Heidenhain Hart/C.H. Beck/Nomos, 2010, ISBN: 978-1841139180, 816 pp., euro 370,99
European State aid law enforcement and policy has undergone a substantial overhaul since the first publication of the German language treatise "Handbuch des Europäischen Beihilfenrechts", edited by Dr. Martin Heidenhain in 2003. At the time, the editor succeeded in summoning a highly distinguished group of State aid experts from legal practice, German government and the European Commission which drew up the first thorough and exhaustive State aid text in the German language. Owing to its supreme quality and depth, the book has been very successful and no State aid practitioner or academic in Germany or Austria has since been able to fare without it.
However, since the publication of the "Heidenhain" in 2003, State aid policy has undergone many changes and innovations, driven primarily by Commissioner Kroes ambitious 2005 "State Aid Action Plan" as well as the unprecedented challenges the recent financial and economic crisis posed to the European economic arena. Many in the German-speaking State aid community were thus longing for an update of the "Handbuch des Europäischen Beihilfenrechts", however to be presented, in early 2010, with "European State Aid Law", an English version of the Handbook owing much to the German version of 2003 but - needless to say - stating the law as of 2010. Although European State Aid Law was first edited in English in 2010, on the basis of its contents, the book is in essence a second edition to the "Handbuch des Europäischen Beihilfenrechts". The authors have chosen to translate and update (changes are more or less radical, depending on the author) their 2003 texts obviously intending to introduce a product that has been successful on the German market to a much larger English-speaking customer base. Moreover, the volume features roughly the same cast of renowned authors...