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Comment by asr | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any idea of a good data source showing the total amount of state aid fines imposed by the EC? One source I've found [0] suggests that total state aid fines by the Commission from 2005-2015 were somewhere on the order of 2.5 billion euro, which is dwarfed by the 13-15 billion euro fine Apple is facing. But I may be misreading the report I found/missing some better data.

[0] rlegutko.pl/download/en-nieuczciwa-konkurencja-polityka-insight-270320171.pdf, see Chart 8 on page 18.

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There is no such thing as a fine for state aid. Member states are required to recover illegal state aid from the beneficiaries, with interest.

Recovery of state aid is uncommon, since most governments simply seek approval for exemptions beforehand (such as the UK for Hinkley Point) and so there are relatively few large incidents of illegal state aid. Especially as it's rare for a government to throw that much money at a single company without great need, illegal or not.

Thanks, that's helpful. Although, from your answer I take it that U.S. companies are, in fact, the major subjects of these high-profile EC enforcement actions and there are not actions of similar magnitude against EU companies that I've missed. (That could be entirely just and appropriate, of course.)

It's mostly Apple that's an outlier here, with €13 billion owed (contingent upon the ECJ not overturning that), and that's over a period of 12 years.

Amazon has to pay back €250 million, which is a pittance compared to their annual EU revenue of over €20 billion, and that was originally triggered by the LuxLeaks revelations, which are also hitting (say) IKEA, which is reportedly being investigated for over €1 billions in illegal tax breaks [1].

One interesting aspect of the Apple case is that the American federal government may not actually mind Apple getting slapped around a bit; Apple not repatriating its foreign profits has been an issue for quite some time, and that only works out for Apple because Apple can park those in tax havens abroad.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-ikea-taxavoidance/eu-re...

No, all states have been found guilty of those ilegal aids, but they were not so high as Apple in Ireland

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