EU court reaches surprising conclusions in Apple state aid case | Hacker News Reader

EU court reaches surprising conclusions in Apple state aid case

mnetax.com

8 pointsrusk8 comments

It's quite satisfying to see that the rule of law is alive and well in the EU.

I guess you might have a particular predisposition here, and that’s okay. If you read the article however it seems to be the case that Apple and Ireland probably did break the law on some technical grounds but they were able to get off based on the fact that the EU were so cock sure of themselves that they didn’t bring the case properly and Apple/IE got off on a corresponding technicality. What this case has shown is that the legislation is far from clear in this area (which is to the detriment of all parties in this case, in fairness). You can expect to see more rigorous legislation brought forth on foot of this, probably strong armed in on the back of a post-COVID recovery package.

The decision was sort of the reverse of that. The EU got the technicalities right but didn't provide enough actual evidence.

To quote the article, "While the court expressed sympathy with the Commission that the Irish Revenue agreements with Apple lacked detail and rigour, because the Commission didn’t produce evidence of the appropriate counterfactual, the procedural failings on the part of Irish Revenue were insufficient in and of themselves to evidence an aid."

That's hardly Apple getting off on technicalities. They won because there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

There was evidence of wrongdoing but it didn’t relate to the entirety of the amount being sought

That’s exactly what rule of law is about. A respect for even small technicalities.

Yes, but those technicalities were not well understood (by any party). The law in this area is poorly defined and has not yet been well exercised.

Like thepangolino says, this is exactly what I fell satisfied about. I'm not really arguing that the overall outcome is desirable. I'm simply satisfied that the European Commision is indeed shown to be a subject of the law, not the other way around, as many people tend to believe both inside and outside of the EU.

EDIT: A further note. If this eventually makes the combined body of EU institutions come up with clearer laws, all the better.

I understand you now but would you have been as satisfied if the ruling had gone the other way? On the basis of a clear legal ruling of course.

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