Amazon.com Inc. won a dispute at the European Union’s top court against a €250 million ($272 million) bill for allegedly illegal tax breaks.
The EU’s Court of Justice in a binding ruling on Thursday dismissed the European Commission’s appeal, saying EU regulators had “not established” that a tax arrangement between Amazon and Luxembourg “was a state aid that was incompatible with the internal market.”
The ruling is yet another painful defeat for EU Competition Chief Margrethe Vestager, who’s led a decade-long campaign against special tax treatment doled out to big companies by member states.
Thorsten Wagner/Bloomberg
She slapped Apple Inc. with a record €13 billion order in a
The watchdog said the ruling annulled its 2017 decision and it will now have to “carefully study” it and “assess its implications.”
Amazon said the ruling “confirms” that it “followed all applicable laws and received no special treatment.”
Overall, the commission has had a mixed success in the bloc’s courts, as companies challenged their tax orders. But judges have at least backed the regulator’s novel policy of using state-aid law to attack unfair tax aid.
The case is: C-457/21 P, Commission v. Amazon.com and Others.
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