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Comment by sremani | Hacker News Reader

When was the last time, EU went after a European company. In the absence of anything meaningful from FTC, EU anti-trust is all we got. But has Europe held a European companies to the standards they hold American companies. I think it is a case of envy! Also, they had interesting solutions - like Windows should have a "choice" screen for choosing the browser and not too long after that regulation, Chrome came out of the gates and blew the browser markets. The rest is history.

Many threads in HN are prescriptive, but once in a while we get some wonderful retrospective threads. Of course, hindsight is 2020, but really has European anti-trust and their actions have they resulted in any meaningful change at any level. Or is it a punitive bludgeon they use to beat American tech because of their envy?

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It's almost an annual ceremony for the EU/German authorities to go after Deutsche Bank's offices because of Russian money laundering.

EU authorities absolutely go after big European companies.

the keyword is "anti-trust". Do the Germans go after BASF or Siemens if they buy a company? Has there been cases where German crown-jewels were beaten down by EU anti-trust regulators.

Help yourself: https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/search?sortField=case...

Siemens (5) cases:

1. no fine. 2. 67.6 million 3. 750 million (partial Siemens in of one over dozen defendants) 4. No last decision/No fine yet 5. No last decision/ No fine yet

Microsoft (7) cases:

1.AT.37792 - 899.00 million 2. AT.39784 - non-fine decision 3. AT.39530 - 561.00 million

Remaining 4 pending cases

Google 7 cases: AT.40099 - 4.34 billion AT.39740 - 2.42 billion (2 non-fine cases) (3 pending cases)

Last one.. BASF - 4 cases: AT.37533 - 66.4 million (partial one of 10 defendants) AT.37512 - fine imposed (partial one of 13 defendants), fine document not found. (2 non-fine cases)

The amounts Microsoft and Google were demanded are in a different stratosphere. Now, you can comment about the choice of the industry I picked.. the heavy hand of Europe Anti-trust seems to be picking pocket of American tech companies a bit more than German bellwethers.

Thanks for the link!

I don't think starting with a conclusion, only looking at the fines instead of the charges, ignoring factors that could influence the outcome (eg. EU companies being more familiar with EU regulations and regulators, for better or worse), and cherry-picking will give you a good opinion on how the EU works.

I expect this line of explanation. You can always start with a hypothesis. I started with one, that EU targets Big American tech.

I did not include Meta's 1.2 billion Euro fine. For the sake of brevity.

Now, that you understand, I do my homework, all you have to do this -- give me a European company that was fined Billion Euros for anti-trust. One case.

(not group of companies or European company a defendant among 10 companies being fined).

I could not find one.

Self-deception is not my field of mastery!

Yeah, once again, disregarding the actual charges. I don't want to say you're wrong, just that looking at the fines is, in my opinion, not a good measure and doesn't give a good picture.

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