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There's a lot of corporate fraud like this, even in countries that have a reputation of being well governed.

I personally saw a respectable Finnish company leeching on government innovation funds, asking employees to log their working hours under a specific project. The kicker - nobody in Finland was working on that project, in reality it was developed in another country.

We have those too in the Netherlands. Even small startup companies can apply and receive these tax breaks when they do technical innovation ('WBSO').

There are also tax-discounts for large and profitable companies ('innovatiebox') that innovate (companies like ASML, NXP) that Booking.com would probably benefit from too.

If Booking.com is innovative then we need a new definition for "innovative".

I'm from an EU country which is quite low on the pecking order. If we offered “innovation subsidies” to our businesses it would be considered state aid and we'd be in infringement.