An advance price agreement, which is sometimes called a “comfort letter”, is granted by national tax authorities to multinational companies, and specifies how the tax office will treat transactions between different parts of the firm.

These letters have come under scrutiny in recent years, including APAs between Luxembourg and Amazon, Ireland and Apple, and the Netherlands and Starbucks.

The Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday:

“According to data published by the European Commission, EU members granted 978 APAs to EU companies in 2015. The Netherlands granted 236 of these. Belgium gave 474 and Luxembourg granted 145.”