Starbucks Brews Up a Tax Storm as Apple Gets Set to Fight EU

  • Coffee company in appeal wants court to annul EU decision
  • EU ordered Starbucks to pay back taxes to the Netherlands

Beverages sit on a table inside a Starbucks Corp. coffee shop.

Photographer: Victor J. Blue /Bloomberg
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Starbucks Corp. attacked “manifest errors” by European Union competition watchdogs as details of the coffee chain’s appeal of a 30 million-euro ($32 million) tax repayment order were made public for the first time.

In a preview of Apple Inc.’s 13 billion-euro court fight with Brussels regulators, Starbucks criticized its EU order, saying officials made several “errors of assessment,” according to a summary of its appeal published this week.