European Commission v Ireland and others

Advocate General (AG) Pitruzzella has issued his opinion in European Commission v Ireland and others (Case C- 465/20 P) (9 November 2023) an appeal against the General Court’s judgment (joined Cases T- 778/16 and T- 892/16) which upheld an action for annulment of the Commission’s decision concerning selective tax breaks granted to Apple (Ireland). The AG proposes that the CJEU set aside the General Court’s 2020 judgment and refer the case back to the General Court for a new decision on the merits.

In 1991 and 2007 Ireland issued two tax rulings in relation to two companies within the Apple Group (Apple Sales International (ASI) and Apple Operations Europe (AOE)) incorporated under Irish law but not tax resident in Ireland. The rulings approved the method by which ASI and AOE proposed to determine their chargeable profits in Ireland deriving from the activity of their Irish branches.

In...