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Comment by kyrra | Hacker News Reader

The WSJ had an interesting article about antitrust lawsuits and calls out why the EU is issuing fines while the US isn't.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-antitrust-case-against-face...

The main takeaway I got was that they have different views on what is a monopoly and how/when it is bad. From the article:

> The different outcomes hinge in part on different approaches. European regulators are more likely to see a shrinking pool of competitors as inherently bad for both competition and consumers. American regulators are more open to the possibility that it could be natural and benign.

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> possibility that it could be natural and benign.

Paying billions of dollars to Apple to include only their baseband chips to monopolize is hardly natural.

Google pays Apple billions of dollars to include only their search engine.

It happens all the time. Then again maybe this is changing.

Apple includes other search engines in their dropdowns. Google is paying for being the default not the only option.

You can choose your search engine on iOS.

Also because the EU is deliberately targeting US companies, the US gov't doesn't have that incentive.

Now I’m curious.. is the EU deliberately targeting US companies or are US companies just more prone to adopting antitrust (by EU standards) practices?

Has the EU cracked down on many non-US companies?

You tell me. It certainly appears that the EU spares no resources at seeking and investigating US corporations and certainly they have no qualm in sticking them with record fines.

Break the law, get fined.

Why would you have qualms?

Yes. They've been rather soft on VW, who got a pat on the back, just like US bankers did after the subprime mortgage crisis. I'm glad the US took a had stance against VW.

You're mixing things, VW case is not an anti trust case.

EU Competition commission has fined a lot more European companies than American companies.

Which ones and for what amounts? Microsoft, Google, Qualcomm were fined more than $1b so far. All of them are US comapanies. Scania was fined €880m for price fixing.

And Mercedes another billion, and Phillips more than $400 million

And there is the whole lot of small fine to other companies.

The OP was the one claiming, he has to back with numbers.

[0} Is only fines for cartels, look at the companies

[0] http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistic...

Wholeheartedly agree here - definite undercurrent of protectionism in these highly publicized cases against US firms. Although I'm not sure how long the EU will be around in its current incarnation. It seems to be one more economic downturn away from serious trouble.

I'd like a statistic for that. To me that sounds like a classic observation bias. Just like germans frequently complain how unfairly bad the US gov treats VW or Deutsche Bank. Something i also haven't seen objective info for or against.

So the EU is helping Apple because...?

I suppose that you have numbers to back your claim, isn't?

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