Apple (AAPL) has suffered a significant setback, losing a longfought legal battle with European Commission regulators over its tax practices in Ireland. The European Union's top court has ordered the tech giant to pay nearly €13 billion euros (equivalent to $14.3 billion in USD) in back taxes to Ireland. This landmark ruling comes just after Apple's launch of its new iPhone 16 lineup on Monday, September 9.

Additionally, Alphabet's Google (GOOG, GOOGL) lost an antitrust battle in the EU for prioritizing it's own price comparison shopping services against it's competitors. This resulted in a €2.4 billion euro ($2.64 billion) fine.

To discuss the potential impact of this decision on the tech giants, Needham senior media and internet analyst Laura Martin joins Morning Brief.

Martin suggests that the EU's actions against tech giants are motivated by a desire to generate revenue from their activities within the region to support its economies, dubbing it as "the hidden agenda of the EU." Martin criticizes Apple's previous tax strategy, calling it "a fool's errand" that the company operated without paying taxes in the region, adding that "now the EU has nothing to lose."

The EU now is "just going to fine these large companies in order to pay for their social programs," she tells Yahoo Finance.

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This post was written by Angel Smith