On the CMA side, probably. It’s historically been a relatively tough regulator, within its areas of competency (mostly mergers). But things like this were previously covered by the European Commission, which definitely likes going after big US firms at the behest of smaller European ones, or the Office of Fair Trading, which was pretty toothless.
Their offices are like 10 minutes away from one another. It’s not hard.
Fair enough. I have no expertise in the area at all but I can’t escape the feeling that at least the EC especially targets US companies (especially tech).
But maybe I just haven’t heard about the billion dollar fines they’ve levied against Airbus, BP, and Siemens.
It arguably goes more aggressively against US firms, but by no means exclusively. Apart from Google, the largest ever fine was EUR 2.9bn against EU truck manufacturers. Part of the issue is that the US and EU competition frameworks are just very different*, and broadly speaking the US tech firms operate to in ways to avoid US antitrust enforcement, which doesn’t necessarily protect you in a European context, even absent political motivations.
- Expressed very simplistically, the US framework is focused on consumer harm, usually measured as increased prices, whereas the EU framework is focused on the ability of companies to compete fairly, with consumer harm mainly as a secondary effect.
Also, re: Siemens:
Thanks for the context, I really appreciate it.
Ha! I just picked three big companies off the top of my head that I was pretty sure were based in the EU.
Airbus definitely has political protection. Same as Boeing in the US.
I remember reading (a while ago) that the big-commercial-aircraft market had basically devolved into whether Boeing or Airbus could get more subsidies without them being obviously, well, subsidies. At least air travel is regulated competently enough to be remarkably safe.
It doesn’t sound that great for Tim Apple.
Also, not noted in the story, but I find it hard to believe that Tim Cook doesn’t know how much Revenue the Appstore makes.
It gets confusing when you have so much money shifted to offshore accounts to dodge taxation.
This is pretty ridiculous, and I assume @Intuitionist is right that its mostly due to tax dodging and wanting to avoid running afoul of a highly paid Chief Accounting Officer’s advice.
It’s more likely they don’t want to say because it makes them look even more greedy.
Apple does a ton of tax dodging legally. I seriously doubt a company like that is cooking the books, there are lots of countries that are more then willing to let them get away with it. (Although I think Ireland did try to reign it in a bit a couple of years ago).
Yes, I meant legal tax dodging - which I think is normally called tax avoidance. But doing so means Tim Cook probably has to follow their accountants advice in how they describe certain items that might show up in the ledger. So he can’t just simply say “revenue is X” because that might conflict with how its been presented to tax authorities.
Agree that public perception is likely a consideration, too. What if he says something ludicrous like “$0” because of how good their tax avoidance is - would raise a ton of eyebrows.
The EU forced Ireland to reign them in, which Ireland fought tooth and nail (almost its entire pitch for foreign investment is as the lowest tax jurisdiction in the EU). Unfortunately, the ECJ recently sided with Ireland/Apple, so there will be no reigning in at all. Though the specific tax dodge they were using isn’t there any more.
Wikipedia backgrounder (can’t vouch for the accuracy, it’s just conveniently puts the history in one place):
He literally says he doesn’t have the figures.
But I was going by the Marketplace Podcast Make me Smart, where the tech reporter found it laughable that Apple doesn’t have reports on this information.
Yeah, we get it. The executives are all playing dumb (they are all saying the same thing). We know they make tons of money on it. The court knows it as well. We have an idea just by looking at their financial reports.
If they really want to know they would call the CFO in. He couldn’t claim not to have the numbers.
Are you going to be ok @legowarrior if Apple win this? (Not that I think they will, but Epic haven’t exactly looked much better in this.)
I mean, compared to the death and destruction in the middle east, over million people dead due to Covid- 19, the plight of uyghur, Hong Kong being a puppet for the Chinese Government, Russia and Turkey surprising Democracy and of course Climate Change, I don’t think Tim lying under oath, or Apple rushing head first into a 1980s dystopia Sci Fi narrative is going to change my near term future.
On the other hand, I am hopefully that consumers will once again have ownership of the products they purchase.
Stuff like this recent announcement by the FTC gives me hope.
(And yes, I truly think that Right to Repair and the ability to install what apps you like on your device are equivalents, since they both are about removing corporate controls over devices after you purchase them).
Sure, but if you don’t like it, don’t buy those products. I know you don’t, but if you were an Apple user I could understand why you are so interested in it. I don’t get worked up about the John Deere thing for instance, because it doesn’t affect me. What Apple does doesn’t affect you, so why worry about it?
And a lot of Apple users do agree with you (and I do to on some things). Apple does need to change their ways. I know no believes this, but a lot of Apple forums/podcasts/blogs etc, are Apple users bitching about Apple.
I think Lego actually is an apple user.
You realize that what impacts Apple will impact the industry as a whole?
The same with John Deere.
It’s very trivial to install what you want on an Android phone, which dominates the global market.