Google and Apple, severely sanctioned by the Court of Justice of the European Union

The giants in the field of IT and communications, Google and Apple, are forced to pay financial sanctions totaling 15.4 billion euros, for violating European legislation on data storage and for abusing a dominant position in the market.

The Court of Justice of the European Union decided yesterday, definitively, that Google must pay a fine of 2.4 billion euros - a penalty applied by the European Commission in 2017 - for the abuse of its dominant position on the search engine market, because it favored its own shopping comparison service, according to the Euractiv.com website. The representatives of Google told the quoted source that they are disappointed by the Court's decision, especially since the giant made the changes requested by the sanctioning decision issued by the European Commission in 2017, a decision that at the time represented the largest antitrust fine, being taken following an investigation started in November 2010.

The European Commission showed in 2017 that since the beginning of the abusive attitude, that Google service has increased its traffic 45 times in Great Britain, 35 times in Germany and 19 times in France. When the fine was issued in 2017, Google's parent company, Alphabet, reported revenues of 110 billion euros, and by 2023 this amount will reach 278 billion euros. Therefore, if the amount of the fine applied by the European Commission in 2017 represented 2.2% of Google's revenues in that year, now it represents only 0.9% of Google's revenues in 2023.

However, the biggest financial penalty was applied to the giant Apple. The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Apple must pay 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes to Ireland.

The European Commission accused Ireland eight years ago of giving Apple illegal tax advantages, but the government in Dublin has consistently argued that it followed the law. The Court of Justice of the EU has definitively ruled that Ireland has granted Apple illegal tax aid which it is obliged to recover."

The Irish government said it would abide by the CJEU ruling, while Apple said it was disappointed by the decision and accused the European Commission of "trying to retroactively change the rules".

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Fair Competition, said the decision "is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice".

In the case of Apple, the CJEU decision means maintaining the decision issued by the European Commission in 2016, which found that between 1991 and 2014 the two Apple subsidiaries based in Ireland benefited from illegal tax arrangements, to the detriment of other companies.

Following yesterday's decision, Apple representatives said: "This case has never been about how much tax we pay, but to which government we have to pay it. We always pay all the taxes we owe wherever we do business and there has never been a special deal. The European Commission is trying to retroactively change the rules and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to US tax. We are disappointed by today's decision as the Court has previously reviewed the facts."

The bad news for Apple came just a day after the tech giant launched its new iPhone 16 range.