BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager on Friday appealed a court ruling rejecting her order to iPhone maker Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($15 billion) in Irish back taxes, a landmark case in the European Commission’s crackdown against sweetheart tax deals.
The Luxembourg-based General Court in July scrapped the Commission’s 2016 ruling, saying that EU competition enforcers had not met the requisite legal standard to show that Apple had enjoyed an unfair advantage.
“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 said in a statement.
“The Commission also respectfully considers that in its judgment the General Court has made a number of errors of law,” she said.
($1 = 0.8587 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee)
