BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (AFP)
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 play.
The decisions boost the bloc's outgoing competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, who had suffered a series of setbacks in EU courts against her decisions.
Concluding a long-running legal battle, the European Court of Justice ruled that the iPhone maker must pay 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) in back-taxes to Ireland.
"The Court of Justice gives final judgment in the matter and confirms the European Commission's 2016 decision: 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 and its parent company Alphabet against the fine, slapped on the search engine in 2017 for abusing its dominant position by favouring its own comparison shopping service.
Vestager hailed the rulings as a "big win for European citizens and for tax justice" and warned that the EU would "continue to push" and "go after" abuses of dominance.
Apple and Google said they were "disappointed" by the decisions.
Ireland, which is home to Apple's EU headquarters and had challenged Brussels' position, said it would "respect" the court's findings.
One of the most bitter legal battles between the European Commission and big tech, the Apple case dates back to 2016 when the EU's executive arm claimed Ireland allowed the iPhone maker to avoid billions of euros in taxes.
By the commission's calculations, Dublin allowed Apple to pay a tax rate of one percent of its European profits in 2003, which then dropped to 0.005 percent by 2014.