
EU court reaches surprising conclusions in Apple state aid case - rusk
https://mnetax.com/eu-court-reaches-surprising-conclusions-in-apple-state-aid-case-39426
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jgilias
It's quite satisfying to see that the rule of law is alive and well in the EU.

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rusk
I guess you might have a particular predisposition here, and that’s okay. If
you read the article however it seems to be the case that Apple and Ireland
probably did break the law on some technical grounds but they were able to get
off based on the fact that the EU were so cock sure of themselves that they
didn’t bring the case properly and Apple/IE got off on a corresponding
technicality. What this case has shown is that the legislation is far from
clear in this area (which is to the detriment of all parties in this case, in
fairness). You can expect to see more rigorous legislation brought forth on
foot of this, probably strong armed in on the back of a post-COVID recovery
package.

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rmah
The decision was sort of the reverse of that. The EU got the technicalities
right but didn't provide enough actual _evidence_.

To quote the article, "While the court expressed sympathy with the Commission
that the Irish Revenue agreements with Apple lacked detail and rigour, because
the Commission didn’t produce evidence of the appropriate counterfactual, the
procedural failings on the part of Irish Revenue were insufficient in and of
themselves to evidence an aid."

That's hardly Apple getting off on technicalities. They won because there was
no evidence of wrongdoing.

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rusk
There was evidence of wrongdoing but it didn’t relate to the entirety of the
amount being sought

