Promissory estoppel prevents withdrawal of promised tax incentives for industrial units that invested in reliance on them.
The dispute concerns whether the State could withdraw tax incentives by reclassifying areas and thereby affect units that invested relying on those incentives. Applying promissory estoppel, the court determined that promises inducing substantive investment could not be retracted to the detriment of the beneficiaries during the promised exemption period, balancing that protection against the State's public interest prerogative and subsequent structural tax reform.