Tuesday's two verdicts are a significant feather in the cap for EU's Danish Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has long driven the two cases.
A major victory for EU citizens and tax justice, she says herself at a press conference in Brussels.
For Google, it's about fines of 2.4 billion euros – approximately 28 billion kronor – for the company's abuse of its dominant market position by favoring its own products.
State Aid?
For Apple, it's about much more. In total, it's 13 billion euros – approximately 150 billion kronor – that the commission believes Ireland should have claimed in taxes. When Apple was instead offered extensive tax relief, it is interpreted as unauthorized state aid.
Apple reacts with disappointment.
"The EU Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignores that our income has already been taxed in the USA, in accordance with international tax legislation", a spokesperson for Apple says according to the newspaper The Irish Times.
News agency Bloomberg reports that Apple has previously set aside 13 billion euros in anticipation of the verdict – an amount equivalent to two quarters' sales of the company's Mac computers. For comparison, the company's total sales last quarter amounted to 85 billion dollars.
No Major Stock Market Effect
The verdict has not had a significant impact on the market either. In trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Apple's stock is slightly down, minus 1 percent.
Both the Irish government and Apple protested against the tax claims when they were announced in 2016. Four years later, they also got it right in a lower court, which was however appealed by the EU Commission. Tuesday's verdict in the EU court makes the final word in the case now said.
"Ireland will of course respect what the court has come to. The process of transferring the money... to Ireland will now begin", it is said in a government statement according to news agency AFP.
