On July 12^th, 2017, a French administrative court of first instance ruled on the existence of a permanent establishment (PE), in the case of agency activities performed by the staff of a French company on behalf of a sister company resident of Ireland. The case concerned the group Google, and the court considered that the Irish company did not have a permanent establishment in France. With the Google case, the French tax administration suffered a loss, but the OECD could celebrate a victory. The case evidences the lack of dependent agent permanent establishment, under the old version of Art 5 para 5 of the OECD Model Tax Convention (OECD MC), when an agent performs important functions for the sales activities, but still lacks the authority to conclude contracts in the name of the non-resident seller. No matter how much the staff of the French company contributed to the negotiations and the drafting of contracts with end-customers, no dependent agent permanent establishment could exist in France as the French company had no formal authority, under the intercompany agreement, to bind the foreign company. The outcome is not surprising, given the precedent of the landmark Zimmer case, ...