Transfer Pricing and EU State Aid: What Next after the Amazon State Aid Case?

Abstract

On 14 December 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed the European Commission’s appeal against the General Court judgment that had found Amazon did not receive unlawful State aid from Luxembourg. In this article, the authors describe the transfer pricing dispute, the General Court’s important considerations concerning the interpretation of the OECD transfer pricing guidelines, the Court of Justice’s judgment deciding State aid rules cannot be used to harmonize European transfer pricing, and whether the General Court’s “transfer pricing” interpretation will gain importance under the proposed EU Transfer Pricing Directive.