No L 138/24 Official Journal of the European Communities 21. 5. 92 (Acts whose publication is not obligatory) COMMISSION COMMISSION DECISION of 27 November 1991 on the conversion activities of French public industrial groups outside the steel and coal industries and excluding the Compagnie Générale Maritime, pursuant to Articles 92 to 94 of the EEC Treaty (Only the French text is authentic) (92/266/EEC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular the first subpara- graph of Article 93 (2) thereof, Having given the interested parties notice to submit their comments in accordance with Article 93, and having regard to those comments, Whereas : By letter dated 28 March 1989, the Commission requested from the French authorities various details of the conver- sion activities of public industrial groups outside the steel and coal industries and excluding the Compagnie Générale Maritime. This information was to reach it by the end of june 1989. By letter dated 27 June 1989, the French authorities asked for the deadline to be extended by three months. Their request was granted. By letter dated 14 November 1989, the French authorities answered as to substance the Commission’s letter of 28 March 1989 but gave no details of the conversion acti- vities in question. The Commission therefore asked for further information in a letter dated 20 December 1989. The French authorities replied by letter dated 15 February 1990 but again gave no details of the conversion activities in question. It was only in a letter dated 18 April 1990 that some of the information was provided. That informa- tion was to be supplemented by ‘a forthcoming letter’ which the Commission did not receive before the initia- tion of the procedure provided for in Article 93 (2) of the Treaty. I The conversion ‘companies are subsidiaries (or divisions) of major industrial groups. They provide various forms of assistance (grants, subsidized loans, acquisitions of holdings, other equity or near-equity funding, free advi- sory services, etc.) in specific geographic areas, to mitigate the effects of restructuring undertaken by the industrial groups controlling them. Although their assistance is intended primarily for small and medium-sized enter- prises (SMEs), it is not in principle restricted to any par- ticular type of firm. In the period 1988 to 1990, the amounts allocated to conversion by various groups were as follows (in millions of French francs and, in brackets, in millions of ecus as an indication of the order of magnitude): [...] IIL A. The Commission had already examined the conversion activities of French public groups in the steel and coal industries and the Compagnie Générale Maritime, applying Articles 92 to 94 of the Treaty. In a Decision of