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> Sure, it'll have a "material impact" at only 4%, but a determined company could just do it anyway. This doesn't actually force them to stop. Q1 the company i
by piva00 3y ago
> Sure, it'll have a "material impact" at only 4%, but a determined company could just do it anyway. This doesn't actually force them to stop.
Q1 the company is hit with a 4% fine of global revenue, let's say it's Meta with its US$134 billion of revenue, the fine is US$5.36 billion, they don't change course and Q2 gets hit with another 4%, then Q3, then Q4 ending the fiscal year with ~US$22 billion of fines, that's 56% of their net income, it's an absurd amount that no shareholder will be happy about. Let's say they continue even after that, major shareholders will be up in arms about how the fuck can management be allowing 56% of their global net income to go to the EU's budget through fines.
If it gets egregious enough and some company does think they can continue the infringement and bad behaviour the EU will just roll out another regulation to kneecap those companies even harder.
I agree with you that companies need to feel the heat to behave, if not then we just get the unethical/immoral branch of capitalism, at the same time the system right now is dominated by these elite capitalists which will fight tooth-and-nail to avoid any kind of punishment through legislation, get too harsh too quickly and we will see those we are trying to punish banding together to fight whole governments to push their agenda, they have the power to do it you just have to look at the USA to see how much mega corporations can bend a democratic government to their will.
- shiroiushi 3y agoI don't think Meta is a very good example here. The shareholders can be up in arms all they want, but they can't do anything about it, since Mark Z. can tell them to go pound sand. If he wants to drive his company straight into the ground, he has the legal ability to do that, since he owns a majority share.