In Ireland v European Commission (Apple Sales International) (Cases T-778/16 and T-892/16) (15 July 2020) the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision of the European Commission that Ireland had granted Apple €13bn in unlawful tax advantages.
Two members of the Apple group were incorporated in Ireland but not tax-resident there. In 1991 and 2007 the Irish tax authorities entered into advance tax rulings with the two companies which determined the basis on which the company’s Irish branches were to be taxed in future years according to formulae based in part on their operating costs. In a decision published in 2016 the Commission held that the tax rulings gave rise to a reduction in the tax charges that the companies would normally have been required to bear and so had to be regarded as granting the companies and the Apple group as a...
