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Brussels (ANSA) – Historic double victory in court for the European Commission in the fight to curb the overwhelming power of Big Tech. The bill is very steep for Apple, called to pay Ireland the sum of 13 billion euros in what Brussels has deemed to be illegal state aid granted by Dublin, in the form of unpaid taxes. A ten-figure bill also for Google, with a fine of 2.4 billion euros, related to an abuse of dominant position discovered by the community executive.
“Today is a great victory for European citizens and for tax justice,” exulted EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, celebrating the triumph at the end of a decade at the EU Antitrust marked by great battles against Big Tech. Apple reacted to the ruling by stating that the EU executive “is trying to retroactively change the” tax rules. Google, for its part, stated that it was “disappointed.”
The most impactful ruling concerns Apple: The EU Court of Justice overturned the decision of the previous court level and definitively ordered Mountain View to actually pay Ireland the 13 billion in taxes already held since the start of the dispute in a frozen account. The Commission accused Apple of unfairly benefiting from two tax agreements (‘tax ruling’) with Dublin, which until 2014 allowed it to enjoy an effective tax rate of less than 1% thanks to an intricate corporate structure.
Apple had stopped the practice in 2014, following a shift in tax rules in Ireland, also linked to the Commission’s intervention. In a separate ruling, also definitive, Berlaymont Palace won the Antitrust case against Google, accused of abuse of dominant position for giving greater visibility to its shopping services in online searches (September 10).