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> they're gonna loose big time because they're a foreign company I think it's somewhat irresponsible to throw out accusations this big without even feeling the

> they're gonna loose big time because they're a foreign company I think it's somewhat irresponsible to throw out accusations this big without even feeling the need to offer any evidence for them. FWIW I once summed up the various fines (anti-trust etc.) doled out by the EU by country/continent. It turned out that US companies were, collectively, fined slightly less than their share of economic activity in the EU, while Asian companies were fined more and EU companies were about level. This corresponds rather well with a non-corrupt process largely blind to companies' nationality, assuming that US companies are rather well-regulated in the US compared to Asian companies. I haven't done the reverse for US fines of European companies. But, subjectively, the cases that made the news (mostly VW and Deutsche Bank) gel rather nicely with my (Germany-based) impression of companies with malignant corporate culture and do not require any nationalistic motivation to explain. I know it may seem like a minor point in this context. But if we always assume all institutions are corrupt, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Institutions such as the court system and, more generally, the rule of law, are the reason we (some of us) can enjoy life in peace, and shouldn't be torn down just by empty cynicism.

the_seraphim 7y ago
I wish you would do the reverse - would make interesting reading considering the current situation re: huawei - would also be interesting to compare the fines levied by asian countries against US and EU companies
brownbat 7y ago
You're right it's important to unpack these allegations, but I don't think they are just random cynicism. > US companies were, collectively, fined slightly less than their share of economic activity in the EU, I can imagine why you would control for economic activity, but I have no idea what impact that had on the results relative to other reasonable controls. If we're wondering about punishing bad decisions, you could have instead controlled for the number of decisionmakers from these companies in the EU. Or you could have controlled for the number of different endeavors or types of products or lines of business (because each different source of revenue is a source of malfeasance moreso than each individual euro earned). I'm really mostly concerned about that last one. What is the chance each revenue stream will get more scrutiny by being foreign? Court cases don't target individual euros earned, they target a certain product or way of doing business. Regardless of controls, it doesn't change the tortured logic in some high profile cases comparing US and EU institutions under the same standard. If the Spanish media publicizes something as widely as it can, that's great, because it's good for the public to have that information. If an American tech firm allows people to access those publications, that's bad, because it's bad for the public to have that information. I'd love to change my mind about the bias in the EU, I'm open to new evidence. All it would take is a few EU cases where they found that the big American company was blameless, but the small European company should be fined.
- yorwba 7y ago
  "French Supreme Court rules for Google in trademark cases" https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/07/french-supreme-court-rules-for-google.html https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/07/french-supreme-court-r...
  - brownbat 7y ago
    I find it irritating when people move the goalposts and don't acknowledge opposing evidence, so I think it's really important to stop here and acknowledge that this is relevant evidence, even though it wasn't exactly what I said I was looking for originally. It's not a case where the US and EU companies are on the same side like I originally proposed, but those might be too rare to test anyway, so I was probably being a bit silly. Failing back to these more common cases, I don't think (and shouldn't have implied that) one case alone in a decade completely decides the question of bias, but it should definitely shift the probabilities here, if you want to be bayesian about it. EDIT for emphasis.
    - brownbat 7y ago
      After digging in on this series of case law, it's also important to note it has its origins in the L'Oreal decision that lets Google off the hook but is mostly about fining eBay. It's a complicated counterexample to the premise that the EU is preoccupied with fining US companies.
- pyrale 7y ago
  > All it would take is a few EU cases where they found that the big American company was blameless, but the small European company should be fined. We are less likely to hear about small companies getting fined by prominent bodies, because they have less impact, because their case doesn't receive public attention, because they don't lawyer up in long protracted battles, etc. > the Spanish media vs. American tech firm One is a press organization, the other is (usually) an ad-tech business. Different rules apply for different deontology sets. Much like FB doesn't get the same slack as the NYT when it comes to disclosing stuff.
repolfx 7y ago
FWIW I once summed up the various fines (anti-trust etc.) doled out by the EU by country/continent I would be interested in seeing this analysis, but I'd also be interested in knowing two things: 1. When was it done? 2. Were you analysing fines by member states or fines by the Commission itself? My very strong impression is that in recent years there's been a new phenomenon of the EU itself dishing out fines of vast new magnitude - not an EU member state, but the Commission. This wasn't true 10 years ago, but it feels like it's started in earnest now. Indeed GDPR and Vestager's time as anti-trust commissioner are relatively new. Institutions such as the court system and, more generally, the rule of law, are the reason we (some of us) can enjoy life in peace, and shouldn't be torn down just by empty cynicism Whilst I fully agree, there are some other factors at play here. One is that EU level fines aren't levied by the court system. The EU bureaucracy acts as judge, jury and executioner. Fines simply ... appear. There is no right of defence. Fined firms may then appeal to the ECJ, but this takes a very long time and I don't know if there are any cases yet where an appeal went against the Commission. This is not how normal justice works of course. Normally the government has to prove a firm guilty of criminal behaviour first, then punish it second. The EU reverses it. That's a fundamental change. Secondly the ECJ is a corrupt court. It has a history of corrupt and ideologically motivated practices. For instance it has heard a case where the plaintiff didn't know they were part of a court case at all. When informed of this state of affairs by journalists, the ECJ ignored it and continued. There have been a long string of rulings where the ECJ openly and blatantly ignored what the written law of the treaties actually said, with Kafka-esque interpretations of language the treaty authors thought was bulletproof. Why is the ECJ like that? Because like all EU institutions it is created and staffed by people who are ideologically committed to the furtherance of the EU project. They are not independent; they are fully bought into the Federalist agenda. That agenda is currently suffering due to member states not wishing to grant the EU more money, and because the UK is leaving (trying to leave), which will cause a large drop in budget. Endless vast fines against tech firms for violating laws so vague all sorts of ordinary behaviours could conceivably be illegal is a perfect vehicle for them to top up the bank balance ... because that's where fines go. Straight into the EU's own institutional pockets.
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  You last paragraph reads reallt badly: " Why is the US supreme court like that? Because like all US institutions it is created and staffed by people who are ideologically committed to the furtherance of the United States Government. They are not independent; they are fully bought into the Union agenda. " And you bit about budget is complete nonsense! Where did you even get this? These fines are minuscule compared to the EU overall budget, they aren't there to cover some kind of budget shortfall.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> This corresponds rather well with a non-corrupt process largely blind to companies' nationality, assuming that US companies are rather well-regulated in the US compared to Asian companies. The trouble is this doesn't really prove anything for the exact reason you're identifying. What you have to compare is the level of enforcement compared to the level of compliance. If US companies are more compliant than average then there should be less enforcement than average, but then you still don't know whether there is more or less than there should be. If US companies are fined 75% as much even though they break the rules 50% as much, that's evidence of bias rather than a lack of it. Moreover, major US companies are hard sticklers for following rules. They're full of lawyers because their home country is and they'll get their pants sued off otherwise. That actually seems to be the problem. The EU passes some complicated stack of rules, the US companies have their lawyers go through them and figure out how to comply without disrupting their business, but disrupting their businesses was the motivation for the rules. Then the EU comes around and fines them again. Everybody who dislikes them cheers, but it smells rotten because the companies knew they were under scrutiny and had good lawyers, so it's difficult to find explicit violations and consequently huge fines get meted out over behavior which is not even clearly a violation of the rules.
- anoncake 7y ago
  The issue is that US companies are following the letter of the rules while violating the spirit. If the spirit of the law is to ban your business model, switch to a different one or stop operating. A company that tries to weasel around the rules while knowing exactly what the EU meant is just taking the regulators and courts for fools. > good lawyers If US companies keep getting fined despite having "good lawyers", maybe those lawyers aren't that good after all.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > The issue is that US companies are following the letter of the rules while violating the spirit. "The spirit of the law" is the refuge of people that can't be bothered to make good laws to begin with and just want to make up whatever rules they want ex post facto. > If the spirit of the law is to ban your business model, switch to a different one or stop operating. If the spirit of the law is to ban their business model then stop pussyfooting around it and just make that the letter of the law. > If US companies keep getting fined despite having "good lawyers", maybe those lawyers aren't that good after all. A good lawyer can't always overcome a bad court.
sanjiwatsuki 7y ago
For further background, there were two surveys of top economists, one for European economists, one for US economists, where the economists were asked if the EU used its antitrust powers to protect EU-based firms from international competition, rather than to promote greater competition in European markets. They can be found at the following links: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-international-competition http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-internationa... http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-international-competition-2 http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-internationa... At least in the academic economist community, there is disagreement on the EU's use of antitrust powers (although it leans toward the EU promoting competition more than being protectionist). I generally interpret this data to mean that viewing the application of EU antitrust as protectionist is a defensible, although uncommon, opinion.

the_seraphim 7y ago

I wish you would do the reverse - would make interesting reading considering the current situation re: huawei - would also be interesting to compare the fines levied by asian countries against US and EU companies

brownbat 7y ago

You're right it's important to unpack these allegations, but I don't think they are just random cynicism. > US companies were, collectively, fined slightly less than their share of economic activity in the EU, I can imagine why you would control for economic activity, but I have no idea what impact that had on the results relative to other reasonable controls. If we're wondering about punishing bad decisions, you could have instead controlled for the number of decisionmakers from these companies in the EU. Or you could have controlled for the number of different endeavors or types of products or lines of business (because each different source of revenue is a source of malfeasance moreso than each individual euro earned). I'm really mostly concerned about that last one. What is the chance each revenue stream will get more scrutiny by being foreign? Court cases don't target individual euros earned, they target a certain product or way of doing business. Regardless of controls, it doesn't change the tortured logic in some high profile cases comparing US and EU institutions under the same standard. If the Spanish media publicizes something as widely as it can, that's great, because it's good for the public to have that information. If an American tech firm allows people to access those publications, that's bad, because it's bad for the public to have that information. I'd love to change my mind about the bias in the EU, I'm open to new evidence. All it would take is a few EU cases where they found that the big American company was blameless, but the small European company should be fined.

yorwba 7y ago
"French Supreme Court rules for Google in trademark cases" https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/07/french-supreme-court-rules-for-google.html https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/07/french-supreme-court-r...
- brownbat 7y ago
  I find it irritating when people move the goalposts and don't acknowledge opposing evidence, so I think it's really important to stop here and acknowledge that this is relevant evidence, even though it wasn't exactly what I said I was looking for originally. It's not a case where the US and EU companies are on the same side like I originally proposed, but those might be too rare to test anyway, so I was probably being a bit silly. Failing back to these more common cases, I don't think (and shouldn't have implied that) one case alone in a decade completely decides the question of bias, but it should definitely shift the probabilities here, if you want to be bayesian about it. EDIT for emphasis.
  - brownbat 7y ago
    After digging in on this series of case law, it's also important to note it has its origins in the L'Oreal decision that lets Google off the hook but is mostly about fining eBay. It's a complicated counterexample to the premise that the EU is preoccupied with fining US companies.
pyrale 7y ago
> All it would take is a few EU cases where they found that the big American company was blameless, but the small European company should be fined. We are less likely to hear about small companies getting fined by prominent bodies, because they have less impact, because their case doesn't receive public attention, because they don't lawyer up in long protracted battles, etc. > the Spanish media vs. American tech firm One is a press organization, the other is (usually) an ad-tech business. Different rules apply for different deontology sets. Much like FB doesn't get the same slack as the NYT when it comes to disclosing stuff.

repolfx 7y ago

FWIW I once summed up the various fines (anti-trust etc.) doled out by the EU by country/continent I would be interested in seeing this analysis, but I'd also be interested in knowing two things: 1. When was it done? 2. Were you analysing fines by member states or fines by the Commission itself? My very strong impression is that in recent years there's been a new phenomenon of the EU itself dishing out fines of vast new magnitude - not an EU member state, but the Commission. This wasn't true 10 years ago, but it feels like it's started in earnest now. Indeed GDPR and Vestager's time as anti-trust commissioner are relatively new. Institutions such as the court system and, more generally, the rule of law, are the reason we (some of us) can enjoy life in peace, and shouldn't be torn down just by empty cynicism Whilst I fully agree, there are some other factors at play here. One is that EU level fines aren't levied by the court system. The EU bureaucracy acts as judge, jury and executioner. Fines simply ... appear. There is no right of defence. Fined firms may then appeal to the ECJ, but this takes a very long time and I don't know if there are any cases yet where an appeal went against the Commission. This is not how normal justice works of course. Normally the government has to prove a firm guilty of criminal behaviour first, then punish it second. The EU reverses it. That's a fundamental change. Secondly the ECJ is a corrupt court. It has a history of corrupt and ideologically motivated practices. For instance it has heard a case where the plaintiff didn't know they were part of a court case at all. When informed of this state of affairs by journalists, the ECJ ignored it and continued. There have been a long string of rulings where the ECJ openly and blatantly ignored what the written law of the treaties actually said, with Kafka-esque interpretations of language the treaty authors thought was bulletproof. Why is the ECJ like that? Because like all EU institutions it is created and staffed by people who are ideologically committed to the furtherance of the EU project. They are not independent; they are fully bought into the Federalist agenda. That agenda is currently suffering due to member states not wishing to grant the EU more money, and because the UK is leaving (trying to leave), which will cause a large drop in budget. Endless vast fines against tech firms for violating laws so vague all sorts of ordinary behaviours could conceivably be illegal is a perfect vehicle for them to top up the bank balance ... because that's where fines go. Straight into the EU's own institutional pockets.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
You last paragraph reads reallt badly: " Why is the US supreme court like that? Because like all US institutions it is created and staffed by people who are ideologically committed to the furtherance of the United States Government. They are not independent; they are fully bought into the Union agenda. " And you bit about budget is complete nonsense! Where did you even get this? These fines are minuscule compared to the EU overall budget, they aren't there to cover some kind of budget shortfall.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> This corresponds rather well with a non-corrupt process largely blind to companies' nationality, assuming that US companies are rather well-regulated in the US compared to Asian companies. The trouble is this doesn't really prove anything for the exact reason you're identifying. What you have to compare is the level of enforcement compared to the level of compliance. If US companies are more compliant than average then there should be less enforcement than average, but then you still don't know whether there is more or less than there should be. If US companies are fined 75% as much even though they break the rules 50% as much, that's evidence of bias rather than a lack of it. Moreover, major US companies are hard sticklers for following rules. They're full of lawyers because their home country is and they'll get their pants sued off otherwise. That actually seems to be the problem. The EU passes some complicated stack of rules, the US companies have their lawyers go through them and figure out how to comply without disrupting their business, but disrupting their businesses was the motivation for the rules. Then the EU comes around and fines them again. Everybody who dislikes them cheers, but it smells rotten because the companies knew they were under scrutiny and had good lawyers, so it's difficult to find explicit violations and consequently huge fines get meted out over behavior which is not even clearly a violation of the rules.

anoncake 7y ago
The issue is that US companies are following the letter of the rules while violating the spirit. If the spirit of the law is to ban your business model, switch to a different one or stop operating. A company that tries to weasel around the rules while knowing exactly what the EU meant is just taking the regulators and courts for fools. > good lawyers If US companies keep getting fined despite having "good lawyers", maybe those lawyers aren't that good after all.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > The issue is that US companies are following the letter of the rules while violating the spirit. "The spirit of the law" is the refuge of people that can't be bothered to make good laws to begin with and just want to make up whatever rules they want ex post facto. > If the spirit of the law is to ban your business model, switch to a different one or stop operating. If the spirit of the law is to ban their business model then stop pussyfooting around it and just make that the letter of the law. > If US companies keep getting fined despite having "good lawyers", maybe those lawyers aren't that good after all. A good lawyer can't always overcome a bad court.

sanjiwatsuki 7y ago

For further background, there were two surveys of top economists, one for European economists, one for US economists, where the economists were asked if the EU used its antitrust powers to protect EU-based firms from international competition, rather than to promote greater competition in European markets. They can be found at the following links: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-international-competition http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-internationa... http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-international-competition-2 http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/antitrust-and-internationa... At least in the academic economist community, there is disagreement on the EU's use of antitrust powers (although it leans toward the EU promoting competition more than being protectionist). I generally interpret this data to mean that viewing the application of EU antitrust as protectionist is a defensible, although uncommon, opinion.