The European Commission won a boost in its crackdown on allegedly unfair Belgian tax breaks after a court backed its clawback order for about €700 million ($748 million) for dozens of companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev NV.
“The tax exemptions granted by Belgium to companies forming part of multinational groups constitute an unlawful aid scheme,” the European Union’s General Court ruled on Wednesday, in 30 appeals by companies affected as well as the nation’s government. The ruling “confirms the decision” of the commission “which found, in 2016, that that tax scheme infringed the EU rules on state aid.”
The case is part of a wider effort to rein in tax breaks for multinational firms spearheaded by the EU’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager — who’s on temporary leave as she seeks the European Investment Bank presidency. Her tax crusade has had a rocky ride in the EU courts, although judges have at least backed her right to use state-aid law to attack unfair tax aid.
The EU has an appeal pending in the bloc’s top court in a loss over its record €13 billion tax bill for Apple Inc., levied in 2016. It’s suffered other crushing court defeats in cases targeting Amazon.com Inc., Stellantis NV’s Fiat and Engie SA.
The commission initially also suffered a loss in the Belgian case when the bloc’s lower court annulled its 2016 order, saying regulators should have looked at each company’s tax break on its own merits rather than as a group.
But the EU’s top court in 2021 backed the commission’s findings that there had been an aid scheme. It ordered the lower tribunal to review the case.
Wednesday’s ruling will also affect separate investigations the commission has since opened into the “excess profit” tax rulings granted to 39 multinational companies by Belgium.
