The story of Brian McDonagh, the Apple objector who dreamed of building Ireland's biggest data centre, can be read as a morality tale about knowing when to quit.
Growing worldwide profits are sitting in Apple’s subsidiary in Cork, including some frozen pending an appeal in its €13 billion dispute with the EU. The tech giant is leveraging the funds in a new way.
It built a reputation as the cheapest, most effective space on the internet to place ads but Facebook has lost its ability to target users with ninja precision. Now, Irish businesses are turning their backs on the social media behemoth.
The Cork company funnelling the Silicon Valley giant’s international business has been the source of a cascade of dividends for the past few years. Now it is set to reap the benefits of a boom in Asian demand for Apple products.
Gerard Feehily was the accountant of businessman and Apple data centre objector Brian McDonagh. He is now being sued in the fallout of a failed €1.5 million Wicklow land deal.
Forget the paltry €13 billion under dispute in the state aid case between Ireland, Apple and the EU – the Silicon Valley giant continues to repatriate much bigger cash reserves accumulated here, for the benefit of its ultimate shareholders.
The 2016 state aid decision and yesterday’s court judgment quashing it book-end four years that have seen hundreds of billions worth of intellectual property routed to Ireland. The case has influenced where multinationals locate the source of profits, and this influence is set to continue.
Judges in Luxembourg have found that the European Commission failed to prove Irish tax deals with Apple were illegal. The main reason? Investigators didn’t go far enough in their probing of the Revenue’s “incomplete and occasionally inconsistent” rulings.
He stood in the way of Apple, racked up debt, used forged documents and a front company. Brian McDonagh has been unyielding in his ambition to build a data centre. New High Court findings suggest he will pay a hefty price.
Mapping Multinationals: Exit the double Irish, enter the green jersey. Following into the footsteps of Apple, US-based tech multinationals incentivised by shifting tax rules have been accelerating onshorings of intangible assets here.
© 2023 Currency Media Limited
