Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL, ETR:APC) and Google have been ordered to pay up by Europe's top court, which said the iPhone maker needed to stump up €13 billion for unpaid taxes in Ireland and Google must pay a €2.4 billion fine for abusing market dominance in shopping comparison services.
An original ruling by the European Commission in 2016, the Irish government was said to be owed unpaid taxes due to unfair incentives it offered Apple.
Today the European Court of Justice dismissed appeals and the Irish government said it would respect the ruling, though Apple said it was disappointed with the decision and accused the EC of "trying to retroactively change the rules".
Elsewhere on Tuesday, the ECJ also ordered Google to pay a fine for market dominance abuse that had been disputed by the US tech giant since an original regulatory ruling in 2017.
The £2.4 billion fine has been followed by a €4.3 billion by the EC over its use of the Andorid smartphone operating system.
Following the dual win, EC antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager said: "Today is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice."
For Google, which was branded a monopolist as it lots a major US antitrust case, the ECJ decisions follow reports at the weekend that a new antitrust lawsuit is coming that could reshape its $20 billion ad tech business.
America's Department of Justice (DoJ) has accused the company of monopolising digital advertising through anti-competitive practices, which claims the search giant unfairly dominates the ad tech market by controlling both the tools used by publishers to sell ad space and the platforms businesses use to buy ads.