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The Nike investigation, announced on Thursday, follows other
probes by the EU executive into tax schemes in Belgium,
Gibraltar, Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands it says allow
companies to set up structures to reduce their taxes unfairly.
Beneficiaries of such schemes have included Amazon <AMZN.O>,
Apple <AAPL.O>, Starbucks <SBOX.O> and Fiat <FCHA.MI>.
The Commission said in a statement that Dutch authorities had
issued five tax rulings from 2006 to 2015, two of which are
still in force, endorsing a method to calculate the royalty to
two Nike entities based in the Netherlands.
The EU executive, which oversees competition policy in the
28-member European Union, said that at this stage it was
concerned that the royalty payments endorsed by the rulings "may
not reflect economic reality".
"Member states should not allow companies to set up complex
structures that unduly reduce their taxable profits and give
them an unfair advantage over competitors," EU Competition
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
The Commission would investigate the tax treatment of Nike in
the Netherlands, to assess whether it is in line with EU State
aid rules.
"At the same time, I welcome the actions taken by the
Netherlands to reform their corporate taxation rules and to help
ensure that companies will operate on a level playing field in
the EU," Vestager said.
The Commission is also conducting an in-depth investigation into
Dutch tax rulings in favor of IKEA and an investigation into a
tax scheme for multinationals in Britain.
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Francesco Guarascio
and Jane Merriman)
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