"The commission's move is unprecedented, and it has serious, wide-reaching implications," Cook said. "It is effectively proposing to replace Irish tax laws with a view of what the commission thinks the law should have been. This would strike a devastating blow to the sovereignty of EU member states over their own tax matters and to the principle of certainty of law in Europe."
Apple and Ireland both plan to appeal the commission's ruling and are confident it will be reversed, Cook said.
"Using the commission's theory, every company in Ireland and across Europe is suddenly at risk of being subjected to taxes under laws that never existed," Cook said.
Ireland Finance Minister Michael Noonan told Reuters that he "disagrees profoundly" with the EU tax ruling. Ireland's finance ministry said the full amount of tax was paid by Apple, and no state aid was provided.
Cook said the EU specifically targeted Apple, which ended the June quarter with $231.5 billion in cash and securities.
The EU's case against Apple is part of a broader crackdown on tax treatment of multinationals by EU member nations. The EU is still investigating Amazon (AMZN) and McDonald's (MCD). And the EU has also had longtime tax battles with Alphabet (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB).
Last year, Starbucks (SBUX) was ordered to pay 30 million euros ($33.4 million) in taxes back to the Netherlands. In January, Belgium was ordered to recover 700 million euros in taxes from 35 companies, including from BP (BP) and Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), among others.
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