Apple has lost its 10-year court battle with the European Union over its tax affairs in Ireland.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ordered the tech giant to pay €13 billion ($14.4 billion) in back taxes to the Irish Treasury, after finding that the country had provided Apple an unfair advantage.
The origins of the legal battle stem back to 2016, when the European Commission found the corporate tax rates as low as 0.005% paid by two Apple subsidiaries between 2003 and 2014 to the Irish authorities represented an unlawful subsidy, as these subsidies were not accessible to other companies. After a lengthy legal process, the EU’s top court has upheld this decision.
“The Court of Justice gives final judgment in the matter and confirms the European Commission’s 2016 decision: Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover,” the ECR judges said in a statement
Margrethe Vestager, the EU antitrust chief added that “Today is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice”.
Apple said it was disappointed with the decision. The company claims to gave paid $577 million in tax to the Irish Treasury, 12.5% of the profit generated in the country, in line with the country’s tax laws of the time.
“The European Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to taxes in the US,” the company added in a statement sent to Reuters. In the past, the company’s CEO, Tim Cook described the EU’s claim as “total political crap”. The Irish government has consistently argued against the need for the tax to be paid.
That same day, the ECJ dismissed an appeal from Google and its parent company, Alphabet, stating the company must pay the €2.4 billion ($2.65 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the EU in 2017.
The court upheld the EU’s claim that “Google’s conduct was discriminatory”, and had conducted an “abuse of its dominant position” by favouring its own price-comparison shopping service over those of its competitors.
Google said: “We are disappointed with the decision of the court. This judgment relates to a very specific set of facts. We made changes back in 2017 to comply with the European Commission’s decision. Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services.”
Both ECJ’s rulings are final and cannot be appealed.
