
Apple has €13bn Irish tax bill overturned - alvis
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53416206
======
m12k
Transfer pricing and tax havens are draining money out of the economies of
most European countries, breaking the virtuous cycle where consumer spending
also leads to salaries, taxes and more investment in the community, to keep
the economy going - instead we have a shrinking middle class, as the fuel is
drained from the engine. Ireland, Luxembourg and certain other countries are
complicit in this. We clearly need better tax laws to combat this, but I'm
glad the commission is trying to fight this to the extent they can within
current laws, and I hope they win the case on appeal.

~~~
logicchains
>Transfer pricing and tax havens are draining money out of the economies of
most European countries, breaking the virtuous cycle where consumer spending
also leads to salaries, taxes and more investment in the community, to keep
the economy going - instead we have a shrinking middle class, as the fuel is
drained from the engine.

An alternative interpretation is that the high degree of taxes and regulations
in Europe is preventing the growth of new companies there, resulting in fewer
jobs, opportunities and investments. If Apple was a European company Europe
would be getting a lot more taxes from it. In spite of Europe's larger
population, in the past few decades it has produced way fewer new Fortune 500
companies than the US (and now also fewer than China).

~~~
fluffy87
The main reason behind the lack of EU successful startups is that they can’t
attract talent because they can’t pay employees in stock options which means
that when one happens to succeed only few people get rich, instead of what
happens in the US were most employees get rich and some of them go on to
create beer startups.

There is no such cycle in Europe, and it’s all because the lack of stock
options. Without them, startups only offer very low pay with little to no
reward, and good luck trying to attract the top talent startups actually need
to succeed.

~~~
retube
Sorry that's complete nonsense. it's routine in Europe and the UK to offer
stock options. what's more you're only taxed when any gains are actually
crystallised - so much more attractive / less risky than the US.

~~~
redisman
That's.. how it works in the US. I have options. I haven't paid any tax or
received any actual stocks.

------
yashap
Standard Ireland stuff. They want to bring jobs to Ireland, so they create
international corporate tax loopholes. My understanding is these loopholes
mostly allow US tech companies to make large real profits in Europe, have them
attribute to an Irish office, but then bullshit the profits away by claiming
things like paying licensing fees to themselves, for their own tech, paid to a
subsidiary in an even sketchier tax haven. So they have zero European profits,
and thus zero taxes, on paper.

This isn’t ILLEGAL, Ireland is literally creating laws to intentionally make
these loopholes legal, as it gets tech companies to open offices in Ireland,
and bring jobs with them. Many (myself included) consider it deeply unethical,
but courts judge the laws, not the ethics, so if you’re like Apple, and
basically in a position where you can write your own laws, then you won’t be
found guilty in a court of law.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
It seems to me absolutely ethical. Any country can make whatever tax laws they
want to get an advantage over other countries. If the EU and its population
want to ban this practice, they should reorganize the tax laws.

~~~
anoncareer0212
The ethical problem here is the consequence of the same game theory you're
citing as a solution - the next country can always cut taxes more

~~~
bagacrap
I'm sorry, I still don't see the ethical implications. Is universally lower
taxation inherently unethical?

~~~
mrlala
>Is universally lower taxation inherently unethical?

When services that take care of people depend on taxes then yeah lower
taxation without a backup is inherently unethical.

~~~
1123581321
Efficacy of these services is not a given relative to low tax + charity.

Additionally, lower government revenue should require cuts from other areas
first, like military and corporate subsidies. We shouldn’t accept that any of
the supposedly missing Apple tax revenue should affect the poor or uneducated.
To threaten such seems unethical.

------
627467
> "This case was not about how much tax we pay, but where we are required to
> pay it," Apple said in a statement.

We have come to accept that certain tax payers (ie. corporate or well lawyered
individuals) can chose where their revenue should be taxed. It think it has
become obvious that this freedom distorts the spirit of taxation in most
(all?) countries. I think it is fair to prevent double taxation across
countries but IMHO revenue should be taxed as close to the source (revenue-
generating-event) as possible.

> "We're proud to be the largest taxpayer in the world, as we know the
> important role tax payments play in society."

The old PR line Apple (and others) have been repeating ad nauseum... No one
questions your place in the ranking, people care about the proportion (rate)
you end up paying. If you're among the largest companies in the world by
revenue it's not surprising that you'd be among the largest tax payers.

~~~
m12k
The problem is that the current system for international taxation of trade
among daughter companies was devised during a time when international trade
consisted of things like bars of steel, for which there is a well-defined
daily market price, so it's easy to audit and prevent companies from profit-
shifting to avoid taxes. Today, daughter companies trade things like 'the
Google search algorithm' and 'the Nestle brand' \- IP, which by definition is
unique, so no market price exists, so auditing it is impossible, making it a
free-for-all for multinationals to get taxed wherever they want.

There are proposals for updated international taxation rules to prevent this
issue - for example this one:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formulary_apportionment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formulary_apportionment)
The problem is to get the OECD to agree on updating this.

~~~
iguy
This sounds like a way to tax corporate profits in proportion to the amount of
VAT, property tax, employment taxes, etc. already paid in each country.

Wouldn't it be simpler just to tax those things? We already collect those
taxes, and can set any rates we wish. Why not just abolish the the tax on
corporate profits?

~~~
zeroimpl
I don’t necessarily agree with your conclusion, but I do think it’s important
to emphasize that Apple is collecting VAT across the EU and paying large
quantities of money to all EU countries as a result. The amount of tax revenue
generated by VAT will be an order of magnitude larger than income tax, since
the former is on revenue and the latter is on profit.

~~~
627467
Yet, VAT is not Apple's money, it's the end consumer's.

~~~
zeroimpl
The money used to pay income taxes also was the consumer's money originally.
It's really all the same thing.

------
kasperni
From the original finding:

"The Commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax
benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other
businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to
pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1 percent on its European profits in
2003 down to 0.005 percent in 2014." [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_agai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_illegal_State_aid_case_against_Apple_in_Ireland)

~~~
csunbird
Meanwhile, the working people in Germany are paying 20 percent to 35 percent
income taxes in their salaries.

~~~
joelennon
Working people in Ireland also pay high taxes on their income.

In Ireland you pay 20% income tax on the first €35,300, and 40% on income
above this amount (if you are a single person, there are different cut-offs
for married people and one-parent families).

You also pay an additional Universal Social Charge on all income over €13,000
- between 2-8% depending on your income level, or 11% for self-employed income
over €100,000. Add on pay related social insurance (PRSI) of 4% too.

~~~
rusk
Don’t forget the ridiculous property prices and rapacious rental market. The
skyrocketing unchecked insurance costs and the 25% VAT and the total of 33%
tax on cars (VAT + questionably legal VRT). Ireland is only a low tax economy
if you don’t live here.

------
nodamage
I'm not surprised by this. The European Commission's original decision was
based on a technicality related to the fact that Apple did not use the
"classic" double-Irish arrangement when setting up their companies in Ireland,
but instead used two branches of the same company. If Apple had set up the
double-Irish with two separate companies (like most other multinationals),
there would have been no question that what they were doing was perfectly
allowed under Irish and EU law.

I was always skeptical that this decision would stand up under appeal, since
the argument that they received a special benefit from these tax rulings
(relative to other multinationals) never made much sense. They were actually
worse off under this arrangement than they would have been if they had just
done the proper double-Irish in the first place, like Google and Microsoft and
everyone else.

------
jka
For anyone curious about the background, here's the original basis of the
European Commission's claim in this case:

[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_16_2923)

Selected quote:

"The role of EU state aid control is to ensure Member States do not give
selected companies a better tax treatment than others, via tax rulings or
otherwise."

------
zubairq
Living in Denmark and having worked for the tax system (SKAT) here I am glad
that this ruling was overturned. I believe that Margrethe Vestager should
clean up the tax system here in her home country of Denmark before trying to
clean up the tax system in Ireland. The tax system here is slow, corrupt,
beaurocratic, and prosecutes the weak and vunerable, while letting people who
are famous, or people who owe billions that are hard to prosecute off the
hook.

~~~
httpsterio
What's wrong with the Danish tax system? Do you have gripes on the technical
side, how its hard to use as a consumer or what?

~~~
zubairq
I guess it is not easy to say what is wrong with the system as there are many
deep rooted cultural issues at play here. What I have seen however is that the
danish tax system has fined many well intentioned tax payers, often when the
problem was that the SKAT themselves have made a mistake. And then at the same
time many people who run businesses are able to avoid tax by negotiating with
SKAT. I guess the problem is that instead of being run as a public service
which is funded by the public, it seems to be run like a business now, trying
to get income any way it can. This is partly caused by the compartmentalised
departments in Skat and internal prosecution targets

------
dylkil
Irish media spinning this as a win for the irish people, while there are
ongoing talks of increasing income tax on normal people to help cover the cost
of this pandemic. Disgraceful.

~~~
robertlagrant
Apple is ultimately normal people as well, either buying from them or working
for them.

~~~
rusk
Really? Can I write off depreciation of my assets (car, house etc) against
tax?

~~~
alphadevx
Sure! You just need to form a company, then declare your assets as belonging
to your company, and not yours.

~~~
rusk
Pretty sure the tax man will call that “benefit in kind”

~~~
alphadevx
LOL I am sure you are right, I was joking of course :-)

~~~
rusk
Wasn’t funny

------
akvadrako
The ruling is here:

[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=228621&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=9563817)

------
jojobas
It doesn't seem to be an Irish tax bill, it's a EU tax bill which Ireland
opposes.

 _One rather curious feature of this case is that if the ruling had gone the
other way, and Ireland had been on the losing side, its "punishment" for
breaching EU law would have been to receive a large amount of money: taxes the
Commission said were owed by Apple._

------
acd
For Every tax haven and tax cut there is a school not being built, a hospital
not created. Nor does zero taxes pay teachers and nurses nor roads.

~~~
bodono
Yes, taxes should be 100%, for the nurses!

/s

------
bedobi
"Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the
money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to
tax rich people."

Economists universally agree both personal and corporate income taxes should
be abolished and replaced with taxes on carbon, wealth etc.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-
policies-economists-love-and-politicians-hate)

------
aosaigh
Is there any concensus at all on how global corporations _should_ pay tax?
These sort of cases illustrate how institutions think they _shouldn't_ handle
tax, but it's not clear to me how we apply tax to a globalised economy? It's
seems to be a hugely complex issue with many different stakeholders. Where is
the nuanced discussion about these issues that falls somewhere between "Corps
are evil" and "innovation is vital"?

~~~
apta
Why should corporations pay even more tax? They're paying salaries, which are
subject to income tax, and stock gains are also taxed when sold. Also, any
sales they generate are subject to VAT/sales tax. Not to mention property
taxes for their offices, etc.

~~~
mdszy
How do corporate boots taste there, bud?

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our
requests to stop.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
mdszy
lmao

all 0 requests to stop, just constant downvotes for telling people,
rightfully, how much boot they're guzzling

~~~
dang
5 days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786339)

3 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22939116](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22939116)

9 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21198326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21198326)

Also, your account's posting history is egregious:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=mdszy](https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=mdszy).
This is not a borderline call. Accounts that post like that get banned here,
regardless of what they're espousing.

------
stepstop
> “This case was not about how much tax we pay, but where we are required to
> pay it," Apple said in a statement. "We're proud to be the largest taxpayer
> in the world as we know the important role tax payments play in society."

That’s a really beautiful example of spinning the story of what’s going on.

~~~
simonh
Apple pays an effective rate of 21% on foreign earnings, 35% on income earned
from cash invested outside the US and over $10bn in corporate taxes overall.
That doesn't include property taxes, payroll taxes, VAT, etc, etc. They are
the biggest tax payer in the world.

The conventional view is that Apple pays no tax, Ive seen that asserted on HN
many times, but it's just flat out not true. If you wan to say the above isn't
enough, sure, fine that's an opinion you're entitled to hold. I don't even
necessarily disagree, I think there's a reasonable case to be made that we are
excessively incentivising the concentration of capital but that's a question
for voters and politicians not individual companies.

~~~
blibble
companies don't pay VAT because they claim it back on everything they buy

they do however collect it

~~~
kalleboo
They pay VAT on the value they add between what they buy and what they sell.
Hence, Value-Added Tax.

~~~
blibble
no they don't, they collect it, but the consumer pays it

this is the entire principle behind VAT

~~~
trollied
You're actually both right.

A company collects VAT from customers when they purchase. But it also buys
from suppliers at a lower value. It pays the difference in the two VAT numbers
(from customer-to supplier) to the VAT authority.

------
oblio
This isn't over, they'll go to the European Court of Justice for sure.

~~~
stormdennis
They'll appeal most likely but their chances of success look slim.

~~~
oblio
It could be. But they're only going to piss off the EU even more with these
moves.

Right now Apple is probably winning a battle but might be losing the war. The
next big EU mandate, besides tackling climate change, will probably be
clamping down on tax shenanigans.

Next time they won't even be able to win anything as the law will be
explicitly against such corporate maneuvers.

~~~
marcyb5st
Are you sure? I think that countries that benefit from such schemes (e.g.
Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg) can veto, sink such proposals before they
land, or simply partially comply.

For instance, the Netherlands announced a withholding tax on royalties for
2021 "for cases where abuse is involved" [1] after international pressure. The
way I read this is that they are building a facade where it looks they are
complying with other EU regulations, but in reality it's business as usual.
This way other EU countries have no appeal to these schemes as the Netherlands
can say "we looked into these allegations, but no abuse there" and do nothing.

[1]
[https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Docume...](https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Tax/dttl-
tax-netherlandshighlights-2019.pdf)

~~~
oblio
There are countries that benefit from it, and they can veto.

However, the reality is... realpolitik still exists. If Germany and France
decide things should really change, what negotiating power do you think the
Netherlands or Luxembourg or Ireland really have?

For example the Dutch economy is basically hitched to the German one, Germany
can find a lot of creative ways to inflict a lot of pain on the Netherlands if
it really wants to ;-)

~~~
alphadevx
Let me introduce you to the New Hanseatic League, you will be surprised what
an aligned group of small countries within the EU can achieve:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hanseatic_League](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hanseatic_League)

------
kazinator
> _Dutch MEP Paul Tang called the ruling "deeply unfair".

"I suspect that many people in Ireland think... 'Why is there a company that
pays 0.05% in taxes?' I pay more taxes than Apple, for that matter. Many
people pay more taxes."_

Does this guy pay nonzero tax _in Ireland_ at all?

Would he pay more tax than Apple if he resided in Ireland?

Or is he just saying that he pays more personal tax than Apple _somewhere_ on
the planet (such as, oh, in the Netherlands) and therefore Apple should pay at
least that much in Ireland?

------
Isamu
Also Ireland is off the hook, if you remember they also disagreed with the
original ruling and maintained that they were not offering special deals to
various companies like Apple. Instead they benefited from the massive influx
of liquidity in their banking system, and all that implies on their domestic
economy.

They have since reportedly closed down this option in their tax code because
of optics, and they probably don’t need it so much anymore.

~~~
alphadevx
Are you sure we benefited from that "massive influx of liquidity in their
banking system"? That was loans not gifts, my income tax as an Irish person
has never been so high, as we will be repaying that "massive influx" for a
generation, the burden we must bare to stop that bank system failure from
spreading through the eurozone.

------
INTPenis
What could possibly be the motivation to say no to 13bn EUR in tax revenue
just to suck up to big corporations like Apple?

To me it stinks of private deals made behind closed doors.

Why else would politicians not give a damn about their own country. As long as
their ass is dry.

I just hope the EU don't give up. I actually see hope when the EU is made up
of people from all sorts of countries, that even a Danish woman can go up
against this corruption. DO NOT GIVE UP.

~~~
jedberg
> What could possibly be the motivation to say no to 13bn EUR in tax revenue
> just to suck up to big corporations like Apple?

Because if you do that they'll keep their offices open there, which employ a
lot of Irish people, as well as bring in a lot of business travelers (current
situation not withstanding). Keeping employment up, especially good tech
employment, and the PR that goes with it, is probably worth a lot more than
13B.

~~~
francilien
What good PR is there in being know as scraping other EU countries of it’s tax
dollars? Ireland would still had good tech employment as the only sizable
English speaking country left in the EU.

~~~
bodono
Ireland has a low tax rate, other countries are free to lower theirs. This is
not a 'race to the bottom' for the simple reason that people will vote out a
government that gives too much to multinationals at the expense of the people.
Low corporate taxes are _extremely_ popular in Ireland, so it's obviously
working there.

On the other hand, if you're referring to where taxation occurs, then other
countries are free to change their rules to make sure taxation occurs where
they want it.

Simply put, Ireland is successfully out-competing high tax, high waste
countries (like most of the rest of the EU), and they are sore losers about
it.

------
LockAndLol
Honestly, if we really wanted to do something against mega-corps, we wouldn't:

1\. Use their products

2\. Vote for people that support them

3\. Just complain and take no action

Since we don't do any of the above, can't be surprised at the outcome. We are
all to blame.

~~~
justaguyhere
It is not easy to avoid these mega-corps though, they make it very hard. If
you go to the supermarket, how do you know any product that you pick is not
coming from a shitty mega-corp? How much time an average person is willing (or
able to) spend to check they are not giving their hard earned money to a mega
corp? Maybe they will spend a few hours researching when they shop for a high
ticket item like a computer, but a chips bag? water bottle? 3$ chocolate?

Then there are monopolies like internet service providers. Even if people want
to switch, they can't, in many places.

Unless there is mass awareness, nothing is going to change.

------
netcan
Some irish background:

About 30% of Irish GDP is "leprechaun economics." Funds that transfer through
ireland without touching anything, and "would disappear if you tried to touch
it." If you look up financial statistics that rely on gdp (eg oecd stuff),
they're nonsensical.

This isn't a normal "bidding for jobs" situation.

We recently had an election that upended political norms. The two major
parties (like US republicans and democrats) now have <50% of parliament seats.
So they now collaborate, almost like a single party. They even negotiate with
third parties (recently the greens) jointly.

What tipped the balance was a "left wing wave." The largest party in this wave
is Sinn Fein, a nationalist-republican party. Their campaign focused more on
left wing issues than republican ones.

In any case, this whole leprechaun economics thing is rarely mentioned.
Ostensibly, the political turn should have turned on leprechaun economics.
Almost no one mentioned it though.

The benefit to Ireland isn't clear to me. Apple, Google, etc do have real
operations here. They employ people and such. But, it's not clear how these
relate to the tax evasion. I have never heard an explicit articulation or
quantification of benefits.

Politically, I think people just assume that it's beneficial because it's
sneaky. A weird expression in irish chitchat is "say nothin!" It's part of a
whole dialect (or kant) of gestures & phrases to communicate collusion. It's a
part of irish culture, and it plays here.

The upshot is that no one really understands why we have this system, but no
one wants to give up the game by talking about it.

$13bn is a lot of money here, about $3-$4,00 per person. It's shocking how
little political debate we have on this... not even from those who want to
spend this money.

------
alkonaut
This will hopefully be overturned in the higher court. More importantly, all
the Dutch/Irish tax loopholes should be closed.

------
dgellow
The commission can still appeal the decision.

~~~
s_dev
Given this disastrous result for the Commision -- I don't think they will but
I'm not sure.

They'll be accused of wasting time and doubling down will further enrage EU
citizens unless they can ensure a favourable outcome.

------
andrewstuart
Here's what big tech companies don't pay their fair share of:

* defence

* education

* infrastructure

* health

* etc

But our political systems are so corrupt there's nothing can be done about it
because they just line the pockets of the political parties who in turn make
sure they never have to pay their fair share.

~~~
apta
Why are you constraining it to "big tech"? All large companies in all fields
want to avoid paying tax as much as possible.

~~~
kazen44
In the end, it comes down to the amount of resources and influences different
parties have in society.

Corporations have become more powerful than ever thanks to globalization.
Globalisation has also reduced individual goverments power over
land/resources. (this is why supranational is a thing).

------
quijoteuniv
Next time EU needs to hire the lawyers that Apple had. Is sad to see
corporations milking the planet

------
julienfr112
It's not clear what type of tax are we talking about ? Is it corporate tax on
gross income ?

------
LatteLazy
Isn't the obvious answer to this an EU wide corporation tax or minimum
corporation tax rate?

~~~
anonymousDan
No. Tax is not an EU competency, which is what the whole point of this appeal
was from an Irish perspective. Of course it could be made one as part of a
treaty, but I don't see that France/Germany's approach to taxation is
inherently better than Ireland's.

------
6510
I'd rather pay Aple 13bn and have them stop their idiotic business practices.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
can you give an example of a few of their "idiotic business practices"? They
seem to be market-leading in quite a few areas.

~~~
6510
They are doing lots of stuff that is bad for users and good for apple.[0][1]
We could list some and argue but even if you don't agree it is possible for
the peoples representatives to negotiate deals. (Or do we need a separate
union for this?)

It would be somewhat of a pain in the ass to figure out a legal model that
doesn't create unfair advantage/disadvantage but I leave that as an exercise
for the law makers.

Users want something like a TB worth of compatible storage on icloud or google
drive or $whatEver, for "free" and a pony. Apple can be like, that would be 4
euro and 22 cents per EU citizen, 2.34 billion for compatibility with other
hosting providers and no to the pony, we don't do ponies.

[0] -
[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1073)

[1] -
[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1075)

------
darrenoc
This is a disgraceful verdict for the Irish people. We laid ourselves bare as
a tax haven for MegaCorps, and now we're not even seeing the benefits.

~~~
robertlagrant
> We laid ourselves bare as a tax haven

This sort of silly emotionalism gets the conversation nowhere. If you can't
write good rules to make companies give you money for efforts mostly done in
other countries, what do you expect?

~~~
thomasahle
> If you can't write good rules to make companies give you money for efforts
> mostly done in other countries, what do you expect?

You make it sound like writing such rules is easy. I don't know of any
countries thst have succeeded in doing so.

------
DoctorOetker
how about international agreement that a half of taxes are paid to the buyers
residence nation, and half to the sellers' residence nation?

------
coronadisaster
Probably a good time to sell AAPL seing that peek

------
dicomdan
EU needs to solve this problem at its roots and put pressure on tax Haven
states directly. If that necessitates a reform that gives expanded authority
to EU so be it.

~~~
eschulz
I'm not confident that the EU will address this situation, much less solve it.
The government in Brussels does not want to be known for challenging domestic
tax policy that has existed for years, especially in a post-Brexit era. I
could be wrong, and maybe the EU will put pressure on small tax havens in
order to give reassurance to working class citizens in larger countries.

------
alphadevx
I am Irish and perfectly fine with this being overturned. Irish capitalists
will love it, Irish socialists will hate it, same as the rest of the World it
depends on your personal prism. Overall seems the EC claim was weak enough to
be overturned by appeal, so clearly not a water-tight case, burden of prove
not strong enough:

"The EU's General Court said it had annulled that decision because the
Commission had not proved that Apple had broken competition rules."

------
mister_hn
This is major loss for everyone

