BEIJING (Dispatches) - The United States technology giant Amazon has won big in court in the latest development in its long-running battle with the European Union.
Ironically, the victory came in an EU court, where the company and EU member Luxembourg had jointly appealed an earlier ruling that they had entered into an illegal tax arrangement.
Judges from the bloc’s General Court ordered the EU to rescind a demand for 215 million pounds (US$302 million) in back-taxes in what The Telegraph newspaper called "an embarrassing defeat”.
But the court said Luxembourg, which is one of the four official capitals of the EU, had not given "selective advantage” to Amazon, which had located its European headquarters there.
The judges said the European Commission the bloc’s executive branch failed to prove "to the requisite legal standard that there was an undue reduction of the tax burden of a European subsidiary of the Amazon group”.