Three years ago Patently Apple posted a report titled "The EU Commission Penalizes Apple with the Largest Corporate Tax Bill on Record." The report noted that "The commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,' said European antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager, adding that Apple's structure in Ireland 'did not have any factual or economic justification. The European Union's antitrust regulator has demanded that Ireland recoup roughly €13 billion ($14.5 billion) in taxes from Apple Inc."

It's being reported today that Apple's 13 billion-euro ($14.4 billion) battle with the European Union reaches the bloc’s courts next month in a hearing set to throw the spotlight on antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager’s crackdown on tax deals doled out to big companies.

The EU’s General Court, its second-highest tribunal, will hear arguments in the challenges by Apple and Ireland over two days set for Sept. 17-18. The U.S. last year lost a bid to intervene in the case in support of Apple.

Appeals over tax cases have been piling up at the EU’s courts since 2015. A first ruling in the series of decisions by EU antitrust chief Vestager ended in a setback in February for the EU when Belgium won a bid to overturn an order to recoup about 800 million euros from 35 companies, including Anheuser-Busch. For more, read the full Bloomberg report.

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