On September 10, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its ruling in the biggest antitrust case in history. Eight years after the European Commission found that Ireland had given illegal tax advantages to Apple, the ECJ confirmed that “Ireland granted Apple illegal state aid which Ireland is now required to recover.”

This judgment overturned a 2020 decision by the lower European General Court to annul the original ruling by the commission. The ECJ’s ruling is also definitive, meaning that Ireland must now collect €13 billion (plus interest) from profits that were made by an Apple subsidiary known as Apple Sales International (ASI) between 2004 and 2014.

This is a windfall that most Irish people are more than happy to receive. For the Irish establishment, on the other hand, it comes with a nasty sting in the tail, as it confirms that the state’s Revenue Commissioners allowed the world’s biggest corporation (by stock market valuation) to gain competitive advantages from using Ireland to shelter their profits. In other words, it confirms that Ireland was one of the world’s major tax havens at least until 2015.