As you might expect if you’re a connoisseur of legal processes, the European commission’s herculean legal effort against Apple Corporation is getting all tied up in red tape…
Specifically, the EC’s antitrust commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, is taking the European Union General Court’s July ruling to an appeals court after the General Court has said the EC did not provide sufficient evidence of tax favors to Apple in Ireland.
The issue is Irish tax policy that Vestager says provided special favors to Apple. Apple, of course, disagrees, and is ready to appeal any unfavorable judgments in the European Union. Vestager’s quote today shows the contention that exists in this case:
“The General Court judgment raises important legal issues that are of relevance to the Commission in its application of state aid rules to tax planning cases,” Vestager reportedly said in a statement. “The Commission also respectfully considers that in its judgment the General Court has made a number of errors of law. For this reason, the Commission is bringing this matter before the European Court of Justice.”
When you read into the commentary on Apple’s current legal challenge, there seems to be a distinction between the legality of judgments against Apple, and the reality on the ground, which is that tech giants are getting away with dramatically decreased taxes through policy loopholes and systemic advantages.
In fact, you only have to look at the ‘digital tax’ issue now in play between French and U.S. parties to understand how this kind of regulatory and business pressure can work.
Where France is considering imposing a special digital tax on American tech companies operating there, the U.S., in response, is considering tariffs on items like handbags and cheeses coming from France.
A 2019 move to enact such a tax in France has been postponed by diplomatic talks.
“France and the United States have reached a truce on a debate over a controversial French ‘digital tax’ that was set to hit some of America’s biggest tech companies,” wrote Colin Lecher at The Verge in January. “This year, France passed a law requiring large digital service companies to pay a 3 percent tax on total annual revenue generated by providing services to French users. The US immediately pushed back on the plan, saying the tax was aimed squarely at major American tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. In response, the US threatened to implement massive tariffs on French goods. is not giving up.”
In these types of big communiqués between powers, the policy is often a study in what’s possible, not what’s ideal or desired.
So to put it another way, there is the international law on business, and then there’s international business pressures. The two seem set against each other in an unfortunate way. What the EC may be able to collect from Apple may have more to do with political and societal pressures than any concrete legal judgments.
