Mr. Niall Cody:

What I was going to get to is that I cannot go into a discussion around the basis of the opinion in any particular case but what I would like to do is talk in general terms about what we do. Clearly, the decision sets out examples of 11 different entities where there was branch attribution.

If the committee bears with me, what I will talk about is what we try to do in terms of branches. The Commission took a strong line on the fact that it could not see a consistent basis. We see that as the opposite to a weakness. We look at the facts and circumstances of the cases. The 11 companies and Apple covered various sectors such as pharma, tehcnology and other entities. What happens is that the company comes to us, sets out a basis and we engage with it or its advisers to ascertain the facts and circumstances of the case. Calculating branch profits based on a percentage mark-up on the branch costs is a well established basis in international tax which various countries use.