Vestager’s victories see her quit on a high

BRUSSELS — Margrethe Vestager will now leave the European Commission on a high after court victories this week vindicated her bold antitrust enforcement after a series of setbacks.

The Court of Justice’s crushing of challenges from Apple and Google gives the Dane a much-needed uplift after a challenging final year as competition commissioner.

A French outcry forced her candidate for a key European Union job to quit. She failed in her bid for another top EU job for herself. Last week’s court defeat on merger policy and other losses have pointed to a sobering end to her 10-year tenure.

Vestager herself said she wept when told that she’d won her €13 billion case against Apple because “everybody around me, they said, ‘Brace for negative impact.'”

The risks she’s taken have now paid off, with the Commission backed by the courts in its hard line on Big Tech and armed with new legal powers under the Digital Markets Act to crack down on misbehavior.

“Her ambitious and aggressive approach worked,” said Thomas Vinje, a senior counsel at Clifford Chance. “The Commission will now feel emboldened to pursue an aggressive strategy.”

Taking on Big Tech

Vestager told reporters that she hoped her win against Google in a case over how it favors its own shopping service would be a “catalyst for change,” encouraging a more vigilant and proactive approach from regulators on Big Tech.

One of her first acts as Europe’s top competition enforcer in 2014 was to reverse course and speed up the Google investigation that her predecessor had tried to settle. Within months, she’d sent charges to Google, culminating in the first of three multibillion-euro fines.

Knitting keeps you focused. Here a friendly elephant is coming along ???? pic.twitter.com/rIW4Kp4Aww— Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) August 28, 2018

Few EU officials ever grab much publicity outside of Brussels. But Vestager made Time Magazine’s top 100 list in 2017 and as appeared in countless articles detailing her elephant-knitting and the middle-finger statue given to her by trade unions. Smart and witty, she regularly tweets and posts videos on Instagram on both EU policy and her grandson.

“She stood out as perhaps the most talented commissioner I have seen in the 20-odd years of working in the EU beat, with a remarkably progressive leadership style,” said Evelina Kurgonaite, a competition lawyer who heads the W@Competition network.

But Vestager also took risks by using state aid to pursue cases in the name of “tax justice.” The legal tool is usually used to check whether government-given subsidies grant an unfair advantage to one company over others. The Commission has used it to look at individual tax rulings granted by authorities, which aren’t in themselves illegal.

“Some people were extremely dismayed by this very opportunistic — and at times unprincipled — approach to competition policy,” said Nicolas Petit, a law professor at the European University Institute in Florence.

Making enemies

Vestager also wasn’t afraid of making powerful enemies. The United States’ Treasury Department lobbied her on the Apple case, while former U.S. President Donald Trump labeled her a “tax lady” who hated the U.S.

That gained her some admirers in Europe as she took on U.S.-based Big Tech firms for misusing their market power, for trying to buy up smaller rivals, and — most of all — for how they rerouted corporate income to trim their tax bills.

Today is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice.

????In its final judgment, @EUCourtPress confirms @EU_Commission 2016 decision: Ireland granted illegal aid to @Apple.

Ireland now has to release up to 13 billion euros of unpaid taxes.— Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) September 10, 2024

Vestager has been “an iron fist in a velvet glove,” said Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, a French Renew lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Her strong leadership was crucial when it came to discussing with Big Tech and the U.S. administration.”

She also took a larger risk in going against the EU’s two most powerful governments, Germany and France, in blocking the Siemens-Alstom rail deal, which aimed to create a European champion to challenge a growing Chinese rival.

That may ultimately have cost Vestager when she pitched for French support last year to lead the European Investment Bank. Already facing friction with France’s Commissioner Thierry Breton and French politicians’ complaints over choosing a U.S. academic as chief competition economist, Paris eventually plumped for her Spanish rival Nadia Calviño, who ultimately won the role.

Vestager leaves Brussels later this year after a decade in charge of competition enforcement. She said she hoped that her predecessor would carry on with a pipeline of tax investigations.

Many competition officials “say they will be sad to see her leave,” said Kurgonaite. “It’s the end of an era.”