The Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg has backed a landmark 2016 decision that found Ireland had broken state aid rules by giving the iPhone maker an unfair advantage. The European Court of Justice ruled today that a lower court ruling in Apple’s favour should be overturned because judges wrongly found that the Commission’s regulators had made errors in their assessment.

Apple (AAPL.US) has lost its court battle to overturn a tax bill estimated at €13 billion, prompting the European Union to step up its crackdown on special tax and financial arrangements granted by states to large companies.

Alphabet (GOOGL.US) faced a similar fate today, but in this case it lost its bid to overturn a once-record fine of €2.4 billion. The Court of Justice found that the US tech giant had illegally exploited its dominant position in search to boost its own product offerings.

Both companies' shares are falling before the opening of today's session on Wall Street. Apple shares are losing over 1%, and Alphabet is losing close to 0.2%. It is worth remembering, however, that market volatility on the pre-market market is limited, so we can expect these movements to be modified until 2:30 p.m. BST.

Apple shares are losing over 1% before the opening of the session on Wall Street. It is worth mentioning that at the end of yesterday's session, the shares erased the early declines caused by the presentation of the new iPhone 16. The shares are currently trading in the zone of the 50-day exponential moving average (blue curve). Source: xStation