TGE Gas Engineering GmbH – Sucursal em Portugal v Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira

In TGE Gas Engineering GmbH – Sucursal em Portugal v Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (Case C-16/17) (7 August 2018) the CJEU found that a German company and its Portuguese branch formed a single economic entity for the purpose of VAT recovery despite the fact that they had different VAT registration numbers.

TGE Gas a German company had registered for VAT in Portugal as a non-resident entity without a fixed establishment. TGE Portugal was subsequently registered in Portugal as a non-resident entity with a fixed establishment in the form of a branch. TGE Gas then entered into a joint venture in the form of an economic interest group (EIG) with a Portuguese company using its own VAT number (and not that of TGE Portugal). The purpose of the EIG was to implement the extension of a liquefied natural gas terminal in Portugal. TGE Portugal provided the...