Professor Alan Barrett:

One of the reasons for confusion is that the subsidiaries of the major manufacturers were, in a sense, purchasing the licence for products from their headquarters. It is not a simply case of buying and selling a product or service. They were trading licences relating to property rights. EUROSTAT would sign off on this way of operating because there is nothing mechanically wrong with it but it was very hard to understand precisely what was going on and how these things are then treated.