(Adds details)
(Adds details)
By Foo Yun Chee and Marine Strauss
LUXEMBOURG, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Belgium on Thursday lost its
fight against an EU regulatory ruling that tax breaks granted to
Magnetrol, BP and more than 30 other multinationals
constituted an illegal aid scheme after Europe's top court
backed competition enforcers.
The ruling by the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) is a win for
the European Commission, which to date has won three cases at
the lower tribunal but lost two, including its order to iPhone
maker Apple to pay 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) in Irish
back taxes which was dismissed by the tribunal last year.
The EU enforcer in its 2016 decision ordered Belgium to
recover some 700 million euros from companies which benefited
from the scheme. These included U.S. manufacturer Magnetrol, oil
major BP, chemical producer BASF, Wabco, Cellio,
Atlas Copco and Belgacom now Proximus.
The EU competition watchdog said the series of tax rulings
given to the companies constituted an aid scheme. The move was
part of a crackdown by Commission Vice-President Margrethe
Vestager against sweetheart deals between EU countries and
multinationals.
The CJEU agreed with the Commission's arguments, saying that
the General Court had made several legal errors.
"The Commission correctly found that there was an aid
scheme," judges said.
Judges referred the case back to the lower tribunal, which
in 2019 annulled the European Commission's 2016 decision.
The case is C-337/19 P Commission v Belgium and Magnetrol
International.
($1 = 0.8482 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee and Marine Strauss; Editing by
Emelia Sithole-Matarise)