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Comment by Atropos | Hacker News Reader

Don't worry about damages claims, EU state aid law > national law. Even if national courts would grant a damages claim, the EU Commission would just order a recovery again, because it would be state aid in another form. Not exactly the same, but the Micula case is similiar: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4725_en.htm

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According to the newspaper, the companies can claim that they were misled by the laws and made their decisions to invest here solely on these laws. So they can also try to claim future costs which are caused by being based in Belgium. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if you're right.

While I would deplore having to hand over more government money to these multinationals (especially since I am a small business owner in Belgium myself), I still believe that the rule of law is more important. These deals shouldn't have existed in the first place, but I think the erosion of trust if they are retracted without compensation is also a grave cost...

Oh sure nobody knows how it will turn out in detail. But it's important to keep in mind what the EU Commission as the decisive actor wants. If companies would be compensated for the retraction of illegal tax subsidies - for example, by only having to pay the legal tax rate of the alternative country they would have chosen - there would be no incentive to avoid these tax deals: Either a) the subsidy is legal under EU law or b) the company gets compensated and receives the best legal tax rate they could have gotten anyway.

But it's just my estimation, I could easily be wrong though. And I'm happy with any outcome, because all lead to lots of billable hours :)

> According to the newspaper, the companies can claim that they were misled by the laws and made their decisions to invest here solely on these laws

Vasque Country government aids were deemed ilegal and they didn't had to pay companies damages for the tax breaks

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