The European Union’s top court has upheld a decision by the European Commission that orders Ireland to recover back taxes from Apple. This means that the US IT giant has to pay about 14 billion dollars in back taxes.
The Court of Justice of the European Union handed down the ruling on Tuesday. It supported the commission’s 2016 decision, which held that a tax advantage Apple had received constituted unlawful aid and that the company should pay Ireland up to 13 billion euros, or about 14.3 billion dollars.
The top court overturned a lower court’s 2020 ruling, which had annulled the commission’s decision. The Irish government and Apple had taken the case to the lower court.
Apple deposited a provisional payment of 14.3 billion euros, or about 15.8 billion dollars, including interest, into a third party account in 2018. Those funds are expected to be transferred to the Irish government’s coffers.
On Tuesday the same top court handed down a separate ruling. It upheld the commission’s decision requiring Google to pay a fine of 2.42 billion euros, or about 2.7 billion dollars. Google is also a US IT giant.
The commission claimed that Google “abused its dominant position” by favoring its own comparison shopping service over those of its competitors.