Ireland did not grant Apple unlawful tax advantages

The General Court of the EU has overturned the European Commission’s 2016 finding that Ireland granted unlawful tax advantages to Apple. The commission considered these constituted illegal state aid and demanded that Ireland recover €13bn from the company. Ireland and Apple appealed.

The General Court of EU said the commission had not succeeded in showing ‘to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage for the purposes of art 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU’. It said the commission was wrong to declare that Apple had been granted a selective economic advantage.

Finally the court said the commission had not proved that the tax rulings were the result of discretion exercised by the Irish tax authorities so that Apple had been granted a selective advantage.

Laurence Field corporate tax partner at Crowe UK said: ‘Apart from the staggering amounts of...