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The US has long been using their legal system to skew free market rules and favour their domestic markets and companies. DoJ is constantly "exporting" US law a

by wazoox 7y ago

The US has long been using their legal system to skew free market rules and favour their domestic markets and companies. DoJ is constantly "exporting" US law around the world by methods that border blackmail or even sometimes taking hostages. Fighting back has been long due. Though of course France should begin with EU free-riders, Luxembourg and Ireland...

pas 7y ago
> DoJ is constantly "exporting" US law [...] Could you explain what do you mean by this, and provide specific instances?
- wazoox 7y ago
  For instance the 1977 (79?) law against corruption of foreign officials has been in almost all cases involving large companies, only been used against foreign ones, except in once case, Halliburton. In fact in that very case Valourec (French) was working on a common contract with Halliburton and was attacked first, but they negotiated by implicating their partner (both were punished). Concerning US embargoes, the DoJ has extorted many billion dollars from foreign companies for breaking these. However there was no embargo between, say, Germany and Iran; as some transactions happened to be in USD, DoJ consider that Deutsche Bank, by providing services priced in US$ to Iran, violated the US embargo. Ditto other European banks. This looks like blackmail: US Treasury grabbed more than USD 14 billions from European banks using this tactic. Also the US blocked various arms sales between various countries because the weapons used some US-made parts (typically some electronic chip deep inside), only to keep the deal to themselves. Basically that means that any company making transactions in US$ must comply to US law, always and everywhere. If my company sold some product to some Russian company with a price in USD, it could be sued by a US prosecutor. Then when visiting a friend in the US, I could be jailed (even if I hadn't no direct relation with the targeted sale, simply as a company board member or manager). If my product includes any US-made part, my international sales are depending upon US goodwill. Which, in the case of billion-dollars contracts, will probably enter the scene. Seems preposterous? It actually happened many times. It happened to the VP Asia of Alstom, jailed nearly 4 years in the US to blackmail his company for the sole benefit of General Electric. One of Deutsche Bank VP was extradited from Croatia to the US while on holidays, and jailed in a high security prison like a murderer. Etc.

by wazoox 7y ago

pas 7y ago

> DoJ is constantly "exporting" US law [...] Could you explain what do you mean by this, and provide specific instances?

wazoox 7y ago
For instance the 1977 (79?) law against corruption of foreign officials has been in almost all cases involving large companies, only been used against foreign ones, except in once case, Halliburton. In fact in that very case Valourec (French) was working on a common contract with Halliburton and was attacked first, but they negotiated by implicating their partner (both were punished). Concerning US embargoes, the DoJ has extorted many billion dollars from foreign companies for breaking these. However there was no embargo between, say, Germany and Iran; as some transactions happened to be in USD, DoJ consider that Deutsche Bank, by providing services priced in US$ to Iran, violated the US embargo. Ditto other European banks. This looks like blackmail: US Treasury grabbed more than USD 14 billions from European banks using this tactic. Also the US blocked various arms sales between various countries because the weapons used some US-made parts (typically some electronic chip deep inside), only to keep the deal to themselves. Basically that means that any company making transactions in US$ must comply to US law, always and everywhere. If my company sold some product to some Russian company with a price in USD, it could be sued by a US prosecutor. Then when visiting a friend in the US, I could be jailed (even if I hadn't no direct relation with the targeted sale, simply as a company board member or manager). If my product includes any US-made part, my international sales are depending upon US goodwill. Which, in the case of billion-dollars contracts, will probably enter the scene. Seems preposterous? It actually happened many times. It happened to the VP Asia of Alstom, jailed nearly 4 years in the US to blackmail his company for the sole benefit of General Electric. One of Deutsche Bank VP was extradited from Croatia to the US while on holidays, and jailed in a high security prison like a murderer. Etc.