Simply a tit-for-tat for all the EU companies that were sued in the US the last ten or fifteen years.
They were usually sued for corruption in developing countries to obtain contracts.
They were however sued in the US even though they are not headquartered there, had to pay huge fines that brought said companies to their knees and were later, surprisingly, bought by American companies.
Yes, the operation failed in the case of Airbus because they were smart enough to raise the issue themselves in the UK to avoid being sued in the US.
Alstom was bought by GE and Technip was bought by FMC Technologies.
> and also they literally were bribing politicians
Something that no US company has done in developing countries I'm sure.
In the case of GDPR-fines companies are literally laundering use data.
> In the case of GDPR-fines companies are literally laundering use data.
They are using the data in compliance with their ToS, which is decided post-facto to be in violation of the GDPR. The level of regulatory uncertainty there is far from the clear-cut “don’t bribe politicians.”
And European companies are also sued for breaking GDPR. Recently, the CNIL fined Criteo, a French adtech company, for 40M€. Multiple other fines in the 1M+€ range (Carrefour, Total, AG2R…) for French companies.
You can go on Enforcement Tracker, you will find a lot of small fines against EU entities, and few but heavy fines against US entities. I don't think this is protectionism, but rather that EU companies fare better than US companies in environments with historically strong privacy laws, precisely because they are subject to these regulations from day 1.
> They are using the data in compliance with their ToS, which is decided post-facto to be in violation of the GDPR.
A ToS is a contract, and contracts can violate the law. Nothing surprising here.
Here is a quote from an MEP who helped design the EU DMA on deciding who counts as a gatekeeper:
"Let’s focus first on the biggest problems, on the biggest bottlenecks. Let’s go down the line—one, two, three, four, five—and maybe six with Alibaba. But let’s not start with number seven to include a European gatekeeper just to please Biden.”
It is hard for me to read that as suggesting anything but strongly protectionist motivations.
> A ToS is a contract, and contracts can violate the law. Nothing surprising here.
I don't disagree, merely with the suggestion that the regulatory framework the EU has set up, which is still actively being worked out in a patchwork of procedural decisions up until literally today, is as clear-cut as the US prohibition on bribery in the FCPA.
Could you give me some examples?
Also, US suing EU companies for things happening in developing countries is a mind blowing overreach of US territorial jurisdiction.
> They are using the data in compliance with their ToS
A ToS isn't a law.
> which is decided post-facto to be in violation of the GDPR
No. GDPR was introduced and companies were given years to adapt and become compliant.
> The level of regulatory uncertainty there is far from the clear-cut
This is also wrong. You can simply ask the EU member country's national agency responsible for the enforcement of the GDPR proactively.
> The level of regulatory uncertainty there is far from the clear-cut “don’t bribe politicians.”
In countries that run on bribes this becomes less clear.
I don't see it as overreach that the US does not let foreign companies that pay bribes compete in the US. Given that US companies cannot pay bribes legally, it would be hard for them to compete domestically with companies that can bribe simply because they are headquartered elsewhere.
> This is also wrong. You can simply ask the EU member country's national agency responsible for the enforcement of the GDPR proactively.
I am going to assume this one is a joke given the consistency (or lack thereof) of GDPR guidance from European regulators.
They were fined a third of what Alstom while having double the revenue.
This only happened because both Brazil and Algeria got involved.
> I don't see it as overreach that the US does not let foreign companies that pay bribes compete in the US.
But this is not competition in the US, it's competition abroad.
> Given that US companies cannot pay bribes legally
Which like Honeywell we know they absolutely do like every company operating in developing / BRICs countries.
> I am going to assume this one is a joke given the consistency (or lack thereof) of GDPR guidance from European regulators.
Yes and I'm sure that Google, Facebook & co were only caught on "technicalities" because the law wasn't "clear enough". If that is not a joke I don't know what is ...
I think you have a flawed conception of how fines are supposed to work…
> But this is not competition in the US, it's competition abroad.
Of course it is about competition in the US, otherwise they could freely exit the US market and not pay shit.
> Yes and I'm sure that Google, Facebook & co were only caught on "technicalities" because the law wasn't "clear enough". If that is not a joke I don't know what is ...
I mean, this whole conversation is about whether they are being targeted by regulators - your statement is question-begging.
Fine amounts are not related to company revenue but it gives you an idea of the impact it might have on the company and the sentencing differences when we are talking about an American company vs a foreign company.
> Of course it is about competition in the US, otherwise they could freely exit the US market and not pay shit.
No it's not. The only reason these companies comply is that the US has retaliatory tools outside of the US that are very powerful.
It has nothing to do with American contracts which represented a minor share of the revenue in the case of Alstom.
> I mean, this whole conversation is about whether they are being targeted by regulators - your statement is question-begging.
Yes, because they simply broke the law.
I mean Google is still sending data back to the US while this has been illegal since 2020.