Ireland has been seeking to attract multinationals by offering extremely favourable tax conditions, known as sweetheart deals, but EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Apple's broke EU laws on state aid. Member states cannot give unfair tax benefits to selected companies, no matter if European or foreign, large or small,” Vestager said. The tax repayment order -- by far the largest in EU history -- follows a three-year inquiry into whether Dublin's tax breaks for Silicon Valley titan Apple were against the law. The Apple tax bill dwarfs the previous EU record for a state aid, the 1.3 billion euros received by the Nurburgring race track from German authorities. Washington has also expressed concern about EU anti-trust cases targeting tech giant Google alleging that it has unfairly suppressed competition.

Source: Sunday Times August 30, 2016 11:37 UTC