Apple Inc yesterday lost its court fight over a 13 billion euros (US$14.4 billion) Irish tax bill and Google lost its challenge over a 2.4 billion euros fine for abusing its market power, in a double boost to the EU’s crackdown on Big Tech.
The EU’s Court of Justice in Luxembourg backed a landmark 2016 decision that Ireland broke state-aid law by giving Apple an unfair advantage.
In another victory for EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, the same court ruled on the same day that Google illegally leveraged its search-engine dominance to give a higher ranking to its own product listings.
Photo: Bloomberg
Vestager — who is just weeks away from departing the Brussels-based European Commission after two terms — made Apple and Alphabet Inc’s Google top targets after taking up her role in 2014.
The Apple decision was by far the biggest in her decade-long campaign for tax fairness, which has also targeted the likes of Amazon.com Inc and automaker Stellantis NV’s Fiat. Vestager has argued that selective tax benefits to big firms are illegal state aid that are banned in the EU.
“It’s important to show European taxpayers that once in a while, tax justice can be done,” Vestager told reporters in Brussels in response to questions on her Apple win.
Apple CEO Tim Cook previously blasted as “total political crap” the EU’s 2016 move to order the firm to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes, while the commission’s 2017 fine against Google was leveled for abusing its search dominance to give a higher ranking to its own product listings.
Vestager ordered Ireland to claw back the sum, which amounts to about two quarters of Mac sales globally. The money has been sitting in an escrow account pending a final ruling. Ireland must now decide what to do with its unwanted windfall.
“We are disappointed with today’s decision as previously the general court reviewed the facts and categorically annulled this case,” an Apple spokesperson said.
Separately, a Google spokesperson said that the company is “disappointed” with the court judgement on its appeal and that a 2017 offer to remedy the EU’s concerns helped to generate more clicks for other shopping services.
The EU’s focus on Google paved the way for global scrutiny, from the US to the UK. The EU has not merely targeted the firm’s search dominance. Its shopping case was the first round in a trio of fines that led to penalties totaling more than 8 billion euros.
The EU’s competition watchdogs are hoping that the conduct of Silicon Valley will be definitively fixed by sweeping new regulation that came into effect last year — the Digital Markets Act.
The shopping case “was symbolic because it demonstrated that even the most powerful tech companies could be held accountable,” Vestager said. “No one is above the law.”
Among other dos and don’ts — it forces Big Tech players to refrain from favoring their own services over rivals — an obligation inspired by the bloc’s near decade-long tussle with the tech giant’s search dominance.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his