5 ms·

How is the UK dictating what US-based companies (Meta, Microsoft) can and can’t do?

surgical_fire 3y ago
Well, if those companies prefer to not comply, they can always cease to do business in the UK. Nobody is forcing them. What they can't do is operate in the UK, and at the same time avoid UK regulations.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Obviously companies must follow local regulations but I think it is a bit different when they regulate that one US company can’t buy another US company. This has no direct effect on UK citizens. Of course legally the UK can do whatever they want, but philosophically regulating this type of behavior feels a bit more unusual and excessively overreaching.
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    > I think it is a bit different when they regulate that one US company can’t buy another US company. This has no direct effect on UK citizens. Incorrect. What the UK decided is that this acquisition can be harmful for UK citizens, and in order to continue doing business in the UK, they must comply with regulation. This is actually the regulatory institutions of the country acting on behalf of the citizens instead of allowing corporations to freely pursue their monopolistic tendencies. There's no overreach here. Meta is free to tell the UK to just fuck off and ignore the regulation. But then they would have to stop doing business in the UK (and possibly later on the EU, that tends to be even stricter). These are countries acting on their own jurisdiction, and companies deciding that doing business in that jurisdiction is more profitable than keeping the acquisition.
rsynnott 3y ago
In general, if you're a multinational, doing a merger, you'll want approval from authorities in the US, EU, probably UK (who tend to behave quite similarly to the EU ones), maybe China if you do business there. Where you're _based_ is almost irrelevant; if you want to do business globally, that means making yourself subject to a certain amount of local regulation. If this were not the case, it would be impossible to regulate multinationals _at all_; a multinational thwarted by its home country would simply relocate (this happens anyway at the edges; note that most of the giant gambling countries are domiciled in weird island nations, say).

Well, if those companies prefer to not comply, they can always cease to do business in the UK. Nobody is forcing them. What they can't do is operate in the UK, and at the same time avoid UK regulations.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Obviously companies must follow local regulations but I think it is a bit different when they regulate that one US company can’t buy another US company. This has no direct effect on UK citizens. Of course legally the UK can do whatever they want, but philosophically regulating this type of behavior feels a bit more unusual and excessively overreaching.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  > I think it is a bit different when they regulate that one US company can’t buy another US company. This has no direct effect on UK citizens. Incorrect. What the UK decided is that this acquisition can be harmful for UK citizens, and in order to continue doing business in the UK, they must comply with regulation. This is actually the regulatory institutions of the country acting on behalf of the citizens instead of allowing corporations to freely pursue their monopolistic tendencies. There's no overreach here. Meta is free to tell the UK to just fuck off and ignore the regulation. But then they would have to stop doing business in the UK (and possibly later on the EU, that tends to be even stricter). These are countries acting on their own jurisdiction, and companies deciding that doing business in that jurisdiction is more profitable than keeping the acquisition.

rsynnott 3y ago

In general, if you're a multinational, doing a merger, you'll want approval from authorities in the US, EU, probably UK (who tend to behave quite similarly to the EU ones), maybe China if you do business there. Where you're _based_ is almost irrelevant; if you want to do business globally, that means making yourself subject to a certain amount of local regulation. If this were not the case, it would be impossible to regulate multinationals _at all_; a multinational thwarted by its home country would simply relocate (this happens anyway at the edges; note that most of the giant gambling countries are domiciled in weird island nations, say).