EU wins court case against Apple and Google

The EU against Apple

One of the rulings by the CJEU is that Apple will have to pay Ireland a fine of 14.4 billion dollars, because it ruled that the technology company benefited from illegal aid in that country between 1991 and 2014.

“The Court of Justice has definitively settled the dispute and confirmed the European Commission’s decision of 2016: Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which the State must recover,” the court said.

He added that according to estimates by the European Commission, Ireland granted illegal tax advantages to Apple worth 13 billion euros. The regulator had calculated in 2016 that Ireland allowed Apple to pay a tax of 1% of its profits in Europe in 2003, a rate that had been reduced to 0.005% in 2014.

Apple said the ruling would have an impact of up to $10 billion on its financial results in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, which ends on September 28.

Oxfam expert Chiara Putaturo said the CJEU decision highlights “the love story between tax havens and multinationals.”

Google will pay fine but case remains pending

In another ruling released on Tuesday, the CJEU upheld a fine imposed by the bloc’s General Court (GCEU, a lower court) on Google of more than $2.6 billion.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, had appealed, arguing that the Commission was wrong in its analysis. However, the CJEU rejected the appeal and upheld the fine, finding that the US company “abused its dominant position by favouring its own product comparison services.”

“We are disappointed by the court’s decision,” the tech giant said in a statement.

In the case of Google, European regulators accused its advertising service of abusing its dominant position. In a preliminary investigation in 2023, the Commission accused the firm of abusing its dominant position and even recommended that the company sell its service to ensure fair competition.

In 2018, the EU had already imposed a fine of nearly $4.7 billion on Google for abusing its dominant position in the Android operating system on mobile phones.

The company behind the world’s most popular search engine faces another test next week, when the EU’s top court is set to rule on a fine worth around $1.6 billion.

Google is also the subject of an investigation in the United States over suspicions of unfair competition in the online advertising segment.

With information from AFP.