The World Trade Organisation on Friday distributed its initial ruling on whether the European Union gave Airbus illegal subsidies, officials said. ?It?s gone,? WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said after tightly guarded hard copies of the confidential report were distributed to US and European diplomats.
?We have it now. We are looking into it,? one Geneva-based EU official said.
No details of the WTO findings were immediately available and will not be officially made public for months.
The three-member panel was widely expected to agree with complainant Washington that the billions of euros of launch aid Airbus received to build the A380 and other top-selling planes was anti-competitive and broke trade laws.
Such a finding could limit Airbus? options to finance new airliners, such as the wide-body A350 due in the next decade, and also affect how industry rivals in Brazil, Canada, China, Russia and Japan fuel their expansion.
The Airbus case and a counter-claim by Brussels about support to Boeing represent the biggest and most commercially significant dispute in WTO history. Officials in Brussels stressed that a full picture of the aircraft subsidy dispute would only become clear after the initial ruling is released from the case against Boeing, expected in six months.
Airbus sought to downplay the significance of the report in advance of Friday?s ruling, saying it was one step in a lengthy legal process that could take up to five years to complete. ?This won?t change anything legally? Rainer Ohler, Airbus senior vice-president for public affairs, told reporters in Berlin before the report was distributed.
Shares in Boeing and Airbus parent EADS rose slightly after the report was delivered. Boeing was up 0.4%, erasing earlier losses, while Airbus parent EADS was up about 2%. Boeing claims Airbus got a cumulative boost of $205 billion from advantageous loans and other perks from France, Germany, Spain and the UK over two decades, giving it an unfair edge.
Airbus says the loans were fair and claims in turn that Boeing got illegal subsidies from US agencies including Nasa plus big tax breaks from several states, worth some $24 billion.
Meanwhile, US trade representative Ron Kirk urged European governments not to proceed with subsidies for the Airbus SAS A350 aircraft if the WTO ruled that previous aid to the planemaker was illegal.