We now have summaries of the appeals to be made by Ireland (published in December) and Apple (published yesterday) in the state-aid case. Ireland set forward 9 grounds while Apple include 14.
On the facts of the case Ireland argue:
The decision also mischaracterizes the activities and responsibilities of the Irish branches of ASI and AOE. These branches carried out routine functions, but all important decisions within ASI and AOE were made in the USA, and the profits deriving from these decisions were not properly attributable to the Irish branches of ASI and AOE.
With Apple’s position being:
The Commission made fundamental errors by failing to recognise that the applicants’ profit-driving activities, in particular the development and commercialisation of intellectual property (‘Apple IP’), were controlled and managed in the United States. The profits from those activities were attributable to the United States, not Ireland.
The readers can identify the difference. The case continues to attract significant attention and there were two recent opinion pieces in The Irish Times from Liza Lovdahl-Gormsen and Paul Sweeney on the topic.
Finally, here is a piece worth reading from Martin O’Malloney in the Dublin Review of Books.