24 September 2020

POLITICO: Vestager faces risks in potential appeal of Apple ruling

EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager seems to have no intention of letting go of her €13 billion Apple case, but a potential appeal of the July court verdict against her is fraught with risk, both legal and political.

Vestager — dubbed the “tax lady” by U.S. President Donald Trump — is seriously considering appealing the EU General Court's annulment of her 2016 decision ordering Ireland to recover €13 billion in unpaid taxes from Apple, according to senior EU officials.

The European Commission has a rapidly closing window to decide whether to take the high-profile case to the bloc's top court, with many experts believing Brussels would be well advised not to appeal. But Vestager does not seem to be giving up on the case, which has become a symbol of her push for fairness in global corporate taxation.

EU officials told POLITICO that she is leaning toward filing an appeal, though the decision has yet to be finalized. The matter is officially still under discussion, one of the officials said, "but I think it will be a Yes."

Legal experts say the Commission has limited possibilities to win an appeal and that political considerations may trump legal ones in a decision to appeal. The Apple-Ireland decision was a flagship case in a broader crackdown on tax avoidance that involved probes against Amazon, Fiat and Engie in Luxembourg, and against Starbucks, Ikea and Nike in the Netherlands.

“At best, the Commission has one chance out of three to win an appeal,” said Raymond Luja, a tax law professor at the University of Maastricht, judging by the publicly available case info. “But this is a prestige case and the Commission may want to make sure the highest legal authority had its say.”

Showing she is willing to put up a fight, Vestager would underline her dedication to corporate tax reform ahead of a new digital tax proposal the Commission said it would table in the first half of next year in the absence of a global consensus on the issue.

But Vestager’s legal chances of prevailing in an appeal don’t look great, lawyers say, partly because the high court — the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg — only hears points of law, and a large part of the General Court's reasoning on Apple was based on facts.... more at POLITICO

© POLITICO