Brussels withdraws Court action against Ireland over illegal aid to Apple

(BRUSSELS) - Following the confirmation by Ireland that the full recovery of the illegal State aid granted to Apple has been finalised, the EU Commission decided Thursday to withdraw its Court action against Ireland.

On 30 August 2016, the Commission adopted a State aid decision finding that Ireland had granted undue tax benefits of up to €13 billion to Apple.

The Commission concluded that these tax benefits were illegal under EU State aid rules as they allowed Apple to pay substantially less tax on profits recorded in Ireland than other companies subject to same national taxation laws and ordered Ireland to recover the amount of taxes that should have been paid by Apple.

The deadline for Ireland to implement the Commission's decision and recover the illegal State aid was 3 January 2017.

In view of the delay in recovery, on 4 October 2017 the Commission referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failure to recover the illegal State aid granted to Apple.

On 6 September 2018, Ireland completed the recovery of the aid. A total of €14.3 billion including interest was repaid by Apple into an escrow fund pending the final judgments of the EU courts in the actions for annulment of the Commission decision brought by Ireland (Case T-778/16) and Apple (Case T-892/16). Taking into account that the payment into the escrow fund of the illegal aid removed the distortion of competition caused by that aid, the Commission has today decided to withdraw the Court action.