BRUSSELS: The EU’s top court on Tuesday delivered two major victories in the bloc’s battle to rein in tech giants by ruling against Apple and Google in separate legal sagas with billions of euros at stake.

The decisions give a boost to the bloc’s outgoing competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, who had suffered a series of setbacks in EU courts against her decisions. Putting an end to a long-running legal battle, the European Court of Justice ruled that the iPhone maker must pay 13 billion euros in back-taxes to Ireland.

“Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland is required to recover,” the court said in a statement. Minutes later, the court also upheld a 2.4-billion-euro fine against Google, one of a string of high-profile EU competition cases targeting the tech giant.

The court dismissed an appeal by Google against the 2017 fine, slapped on the search engine for abusing its dominant position by favouring its own comparison shopping service.

Apple said later on Tuesday in a US securities filing that it would take up to a $10 billion earnings hit. The figure will not make much of a dent in a company that saw global sales of $383 billion and net profit of $97 billion in the year to September 2023. Vestager hailed the rulings as a “big win for European citizens and for tax justice” and warned the EU would “continue to push” and “go after” abuses of dominance.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2024