The surprise Opinion by CJEU Advocate General Giovanni Pitruzzella to send the Apple tax case back to a lower court seems to signal an unsympathetic response to the Irish Government’s case on the issue which pivots on a distinction between what in Irish law is an opinion on a tax issue, and a ruling under a ‘Napoleonic’ or ‘roman’ code, the norm in most parts of mainland Europe. We republish a 2017 Irish Tax Monitor article reiterating the main points of Ireland’s challenge, which remain as relevant today as then - i.e. the distinction between an opinion and a ruling. Ireland’s case rests substantially on the fact that an opinion issued by an Irish official never had any standing in Irish tax law, and therefore could not have constituted “State aid”. In it Peter O’Dwyer, on behalf of Finance Dublin, asked Noirin Cahalane of Mazars a series of questions on the topic which follow the main points of the challenge, which subsequently formed the basis of the Irish Government’s initially successful appeal to the CJEU.