Attorney General Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Giovanni Pitruzzella this Thursday asked for the annulment of the decision in favor of Apple in his dispute against the European Commission’s historic decision forcing Apple to return 13 billion euros plus interest for benefiting from illegal tax assistance in Ireland.
According to the statement made by the judicial institution, Pitruzzella, in his conclusions on the matter, recommended that the CJEU “annull the decision and remand the matter to the General Court so that it can decide again on the merits.”
The case dates back to 2016, when the community Competition services, headed by Danish Margrethe Vestager, concluded. two subsidiaries of the multinational company Apple (ASI and AOE) benefited from the Irish Government’s selective tax treatment between 1991 and 2014, despite not being taxpayers in the European country. This is the better tax deal of its branches This allowed the American firm to pay much less tax than it should have, forcing Dublin to recover the lost revenue.
In particular, the community authorities have ruled that the exclusion of profits from this from the tax base, Use of intellectual property licenses The investigation by two companies belonging to the American group constituted illegal state aid and was against internal market rules. As a result, the European Commission called on Ireland to claw back the amount of these tax benefits (13 billion) and the corresponding interest.
First decision of 2020
Both Apple and Ireland appealed this decision to the European Court of Justice. First sentence of 2020 It ruled that Brussels had not proven the existence of a selective tax advantage granted to Apple Sales International (ASI) or Apple Operations Europe (AOP). This decision was a huge victory for Apple at the time and a failure for the Brussels Competition Services.
The European Commission appealed this decision and today’s conclusions are lawyer Pitruzzella The person who proposes that the case be annulled and reexamined.
The lawyer argues that “A number of mistakes were made” in the 2020 decision Law declaring that the Commission had not sufficiently established that the intellectual property licenses held by ASI and AOE and the corresponding profits were obtained by ASI and AOE Sales of Apple products abroad The United States would be attributed to the Irish branches for tax purposes.”
In his view, the decision also did not properly consider the existence and consequences of certain sanctions. methodological errors According to the Commission’s decision, this invalidated the advance tax decisions.
Procedure
For these reasons, the Attorney General considers that the Luxembourg-based Court should comply with this requirement. “A new evaluation of the subject”. Conclusions of the CJEU chief prosecutors is not binding face penalties that come several months later, but in most cases are usually followed. The duty of the Chief Prosecutor is to make proposals to the Court of Justice with absolute independence. a legal solution to the subject he is dealing with. Judges of the Court of Justice take office negotiations About this topic. The punishment will be announced later.