The European Commission has opened three investigations to examine whether tax authorities have made appropriate decisions about corporate tax paid by Apple in Ireland, Starbucks in the Netherlands and Fiat Finance and Trade in Luxembourg.

It’s launched the investigation following media reports that suggest that some companies have received significant tax reductions through ‘tax rulings’ issued by national tax authorities.

A new research report from Berg Insight shows that in-store mobile wallet payments across Europe are expected to grow from less than €100 million (£85 million) in 2012 to €45 billion (£38 billion) in 2017, which is a compound annual growth rate of 275%.

This will give mobile wallets 1.6% of all European credit card and debit card payments in 2017.

This week's edition of The Fonecast starts with news that Motorola Mobility is to lose around a fifth of its staff worldwide. There's also more reorganisation at Nokia, which is passing its Qt software business to Digia.

In addition we're talking about a new US partnership between Starbucks and Square, some good news for Research In Motion, a worrying report for Samsung and a major milestone for Shazam.

Coffee chain Starbucks has partnered with mobile payment company Square to introduce the ‘Pay with Square’ app at around 7.000 US Starbucks stores. In addition, Square will process Starbucks’ US credit and debit card transactions.

Starbucks is investing $25 million in Square with its chairman, Howard Schultz, joining Square’s Board of Directors.

Earlier this year Starbucks introduced its iPhone mobile payment app to the UK - and the coffee company has now added an Android app as well.

The new Android app, which is also launching in Canada, enables customers to pay via a Starbucks Card account using an on-screen barcode. It’s also possible to manage a card account, check loyalty rewards and find local stores.