Small Companies Look To Move Antitrust Suits To Europe
from the come-to-Europe-for-the-history,-stay-for-the-regulatory-smackdowns dept
Following the EU's decision to smack down Microsoft for antitrust violation, we had already noted how this could mean trouble for other successful tech companies. Of course, that just means it's an opportunity for less successful companies. The Financial Times notes that small companies that have been unable to get much traction in their attempts to brand their bigger, more established competitors as monopolists, may now try to move those cases to Europe, where they hope to receive more favorable rulings. That seems a bit extreme and, one would hope, unlikely to succeed in most cases. Still, we have seen more questionable IPOs moving to Europe, so why not more questionable antitrust cases as well?
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Filed Under: antitrust, europe
Companies: ibm, microsoft, psi
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Europe is just not as leasy to manipulate?
One single point of control (Washington DC) is much easier for the big money to manipulate.
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The alternative
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Microsoft was (and is) a convicted monopolist (even in the US, if not for the administration change in 2000, MSFT might not have gotten off the hook that easily).
Also there's a way to control wether or not you have a monoply (the term is actually pretty accurately defined).
Don't assume that because MSFT was convicted it means that other will be convicted that easily (MSFT case was pretty clear cut anyway).
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Re:
As to Europe, well, anything American is an easy target. France has always looked at developing a French version of various Google services. Europeans are a funny bunch. Governments invest billions into Airbus, farm subsidies and so on, but have the nerve to file anti-trust suits against large American companies.
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Small Companies Look To Move Antitrust Suits To Eu
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This is hardly flame bait. This is what Techdirt does - it provides its own analysis/viewpoint on the news. This is commenting on the Financial Times article, not just older TD items. Three words: reading comprehension skills. ;)
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Europe has the nerve? The company was operating in Europe.
I guess we Europeans are crazy ones, enforcing our law in our sovereign land ... I guess we should take a cue from America and enforce our laws worldwide, wherever we see fit ...
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Techdirt.com news stories, the most memorable and
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