Category Archives: Margrethe Vestager

European commission to appeal against €13bn Apple tax ruling

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Brussels seeks to overturn decision over alleged unpaid taxes to Irish government

The European commission is appealing against a court ruling that said Apple did not have to pay €13bn (£11.9bn) in alleged back taxes to the Irish government, reopening a landmark battle in the EU’s campaign to stop sweetheart deals for multinationals.

The bloc’s competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, said on Friday she would appeal to the EU court of justice to try to oblige Ireland to collect the alleged unpaid taxes and interest from the tech giant.

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Microsoft president’s criticism of app stores puts pressure on Apple

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Cut of up to 30% charged by app stores obstructs fair competition, claims Brad Smith

Microsoft has thrown its weight behind calls for an antitrust investigation into App Store monopolies, piling yet more pressure on Apple as the iPhone maker prepares for its annual developer conference on Monday.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, criticised the 30% cut that app stores take from developers this month, and argued that the policy is a far higher burden on fair competition than the issues that led to Microsoft’s antitrust case in the early 2000s.

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Margrethe Vestager scares the tech giants. If we leave the EU, we’ll miss her

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Trump says the competition commissioner hates the US, but what she really hates is tax avoidance

The greatest economic threat facing Europe is of falling hopelessly behind the US and China in adopting the next generation of technology. That is the view of many across Europe’s industrial and financial sectors who watch with wonder the proxy battle between the US and Chinese administrations on behalf of their tech giants.

Business leaders from Dublin to Warsaw are open-mouthed – not so much at the often-bizarre tug of war between the two sides as at the fact that these economic blocs can lay claim to almost all the world’s tech giants.

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