I certainly would not attribute it to oversight or misinterpretation of arcane laws. Obviously they knew what they were doing. And, I'll leave aside moral cons

I certainly would not attribute it to oversight or misinterpretation of arcane laws. Obviously they knew what they were doing. And, I'll leave aside moral considerations because they are not strictly relevant to the point of whether the EU's ruling is correct. My point was that I don't see that either side of the legal argument is blindingly compelling. Certainly not without hearing a lot more argument and research from both sides. It comes down to a disagreement over whether Apple's use of a particular loophole in Irish law constitutes Ireland giving Apple a special deal that is unavailable to other companies. Apple/Ireland argue that the loophole existed in law and was available to anybody. EU argues that even though the loophole may technically have existed in Irish law, it still constitutes a special deal with Apple because (I think) it takes a lot of money to hire the tax experts necessary to exploit it. What is the knockdown blow that makes either one of these either totally compelling or totally uncompelling? I don't see why people are so certain on either side of this.