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Comment by Fuxy | Hacker News Reader

This is probably one of the few situations where I think Microsoft is right and if they want the data they should abide by Irish law.

If it's that hard to get the necessary paperwork done for this they should fix their system not complain to the courts that it takes to long.

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Especially if they want to keep non-USA clients who have to obey different laws with their own businesses data.

American institutions truly think their jurisdiction is global. Did you hear the one about the NYPD cops that showed up in different parts of the world demanding the governments in various jurisdictions respect them? (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140107/21020425797/posti...)

And the BNP bank fined $ 10 billions for not respecting US law while doing operations between foreign countries (under the preposterous argument that if you use US dollar for a transaction anywhere in the world, it must respect US laws).

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/30/bnp-paribas-...

Yup. My friend's dad had his UK account(!!!!) frozen on request of USA government because he was doing business with Cuba(trading cigars). He has never ever been to USA,and the money being transferred wasn't going through US either. It took 6 months before whichever US agency finished their investigation why a UK-citizen would be buying Cuban cigars, and they "allowed" the account to be unfrozen. Absolutely unacceptable if you ask me.

The transactions WERE going through the US, which is why the US government had jurisdiction.

Absolutely not. The US courts used the argument that in last resort a US clearing house _may_ have to survey the transaction because it was in US$. However not a single dollar went through the US.

I'm puzzled by this:

On top of the potentially huge fine, BNP Paribas could suffer a temporary ban on processing dollar transactions, a business that is essential to the operations of an international bank.

Are USA officials able to enforce these sorts of restrictions on e.g. the sidewalk moneychangers one finds in any developing nation? There are more dollars (both physical and in ledger books) overseas than in the USA. At what point does a bank in another country become vulnerable to this sort of restriction? Are officers going to show up outside the bank and yell "give us all your dollars!"?

Banks don't move dollars in crates overseas, transfers in USD are going through US banks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondent_account

Hmmm, that seems to contradict the assertion that "not a single dollar went through the US". If this is the mechanism that BNP Paribas uses, they shouldn't be surprised they are subject to USA laws.

Awesome.

the Indonesian National Police “were astonished and irritated that the NYPD showed up,” a federal source explained

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