The European Commission (Commission) took the first concrete action towards using EU State aid rules against aggressive tax planning by multinational companies by opening formal investigations against Ireland (Apple), Luxembourg (Fiat Finance and Trade) and the Netherlands (Starbucks). The Commission has concerns that these companies may have benefited from a selective advantage in the form of tax rulings by tax authorities that confer on them a preferential calculation of the taxable basis. The Commission has already announced that it investigates further cases of alleged State aid in the form of tax rulings in at least six EU Member States (including France and the UK) in the upcoming months.
In Elf Aquitaine SA v Commission, the European Court of Justice ruled on 29 September 2011 that Elf Aquitaine was not jointly and severally liable as a parent company for the involvement of its wholly owned subsidiary in the cartel for monochloroaecetic acid. Taken with a number of recent judgments, this suggests that European courts are getting tougher with the Commission on parental liability.
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