ECJ ruled: no illegal State aid in the European Commission’s Amazon case
Today, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) annulled the decision of the Commission[1] that had decided that Luxembourg had granted Amazon unlawful State aid of about EUR 250 million in a tax ruling confirming the arm’s length nature of deductible royalty payments by a Luxembourg operating company to a tax transparent Luxembourg partnership.
Following Advocate General Kokott’s opinion, the ECJ considers that the Commission had wrongly determined the “reference system”, which is the first step in analysing a national measure in order to be able to categorise it as State aid. It is worth noting that the ECJ upheld the judgement of the General Court[2] which had annulled the decision of the Commission but not on the same grounds.
For more background on AG Kokott’s opinion, please check out the link below.
Our Newsletter dated 10 July 2023
This decision is in line with ECJ’s previous rulings in Engie and Fiat cases (see our previous Newsflash and Article in this respect).
[1] Commission decision (UE) of 4 October 2017 on State aid SA.38944 (2014/C) (ex 2014/NN) implemented by Luxembourg in favour of Amazon.
[2] Judgment of 12 May 2021, T-816/17 and T-318/18, Luxembourg v Commission
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