The rulings gave a boost to the outgoing head of the bloc's competition unit, Margrethe Vestager, who has suffered a string of setbacks in EU courts against her decisions.
Ending a years-long legal battle, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the bloc's highest court, ruled that the iPhone maker must pay 13 billion euros in taxes to Ireland.
"The CJEU has given its final ruling on the matter and confirms the European Commission's decision of 2016: Ireland has granted Apple unlawful aid which Ireland must recover," the court said in a statement.
Minutes later, the court also upheld a €2.4 billion fine against Google, one of a series of noisy EU competition cases targeting the tech giant.
The court rejected an appeal by Google and its parent company Alphabet against a fine imposed on the search engine in 2017 for abusing its dominant position by favouring its own comparison shopping service. | BGNES
