EU Cases Mount Against US Firms

The European Union’s decision to slap Amazon with a multi-million euro tax bill and take Ireland to court for not complying with a landmark case against Apple are the latest in a string of competition cases against US firms, AFP reported. In June, the EU hit Google with a record fine of €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) for skewing search results in favor of its own shopping service. This is only one of three concurrent investigations into the US web giant, which controls about 90% of the search market in Europe. In April 2016, the commission also opened a probe into whether Google gives unfair prominence to its own Android apps such as search, maps and music streaming in deals with mobile manufacturers that include Samsung and Huawei. Then in July last year, Brussels targeted Google’s advertising business, saying it had restricted some websites from displaying ads from competitors. In all the cases, Google risks a fine of 10% of worldwide global sales for one year. Brussels came down hard last year on Apple, ordering it to repay Ireland a record €13 billion in back taxes.