There's nothing to appeal. Either they fall in to the classification or not.
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EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms
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There's nothing to appeal. Either they fall in to the classification or not.
Loopholes are taken advantage of all the time. You can not impose steep fines on someone who has not broken the rules. At least not in the US...
Billionaires who have a majority of their wealth in stocks often never "sell" their stock and instead borrow against it to avoid capital gains tax. They can not be taxed for "unrealized" gains. This is a well known and often exploited "loophole". Yet, none of those billionaires have been fined or served any punishment for taking advantage of this loophole and the loophole has not been removed.
There is no fraud. They are simply following the letter of the law.
My point was that a market cap is not tied to the country where a particular exchange may be located e.g., Sony trades on the NY and Tokyo stock exchanges yet its market cap is the same on both (in the local currencies). It's not country/region specific. These market caps assess the company as a whole (globally).
Yes, I was commenting about antitrust laws in general. Each country or region can have its own laws and regulations regarding what may determine dominance, anticompetitive behavior, etc. There tends to be similarities but some of the specifics may vary.
The rules will apply six months after its entry into force. It will then take another couple of months to designate the first gatekeepers. Designated gatekeepers will, however, have the ability to bring an appeal against that decision before the EU General Court.
so yea you can appeal the decision that you aren’t a gatekeeper.
Once the Digital Markets Act enters into force, the Commission will first assess whether companies active in core platform services qualify as a “gatekeeper” under the DMA:
- Companies will have to verify themselves if they meet the quantitative thresholds included in the DMA to identify gatekeepers. They will then have to provide the Commission with information on this;
- The Commission will then designate as “gatekeepers” those companies that meet the thresholds in the DMA based on the information provided by the companies (subject to a possible substantiated rebuttal) and/or following a market investigation;
- Within six months after a company is identified as a “gatekeeper”, it will have to comply with the “dos” and “don'ts” listed in the DMA. For those gatekeepers that do not yet enjoy an entrenched and durable position, but are expected to do so in the near future, only those obligations apply that are necessary and appropriate to ensure that the company does not achieve by unfair means such entrenched and durable position in its operations.
To ensure the effectiveness of the new rules, the possibility of sanctions for non-compliance with the prohibitions and obligations is foreseen.
If a gatekeeper does not comply with the rules, the Commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the company's total worldwide annual turnover or 20% in the event of repeated infringements and periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of the company's total worldwide daily turnover.
In case of systematic infringements the Commission can impose additional remedies. Where necessary to achieve compliance, and where no alternative, equally effective measures are available, these can include structural remedies, such as obliging a gatekeeper to sell a business, or parts of it (i.e. selling units, assets, intellectual property rights or brands), or banning a gatekeeper from acquiring any company that provides services in the digital sector or services enabling the collection of data affected by the systematic non-compliance.
How to ensure that the new rules are future proof in view of the fast-evolving digital sector?
Ensuring that the Digital Markets Act is and remains future proof has been a key objective of the Commission from the start, and it was strongly retained in the final agreement.
To this end, the Commission is empowered under the Digital Markets Act to supplement the existing obligations applicable to gatekeepers based on a market investigation, which may translate into a supplementary act (delegated act), or a review of the DMA. This should ensure that the same issues of fairness and contestability are tackled also where the practices of gatekeepers and digital markets evolve.
In addition to supplementing the obligations, the Commission will be able to designate so-called ‘emerging' gatekeepers that are on a clear path to making services tip to their advantage. This way the instrument is both very precise and therefore easily implementable and effective, as well as flexible enough to keep pace with developments in the fast-evolving digital sector.
What if they follow the rules to a tee?
What if they break the €7.5B for three consecutive years thing willingly or unwillingly to disqualify themselves from being considered a gatekeeper?
I agree it can be argued in court.
For apple tho it’s a meaningless distinction as their revenue is 14x the size of the qualifier on yearly revenue? You only need to fulfill one not both.
Does apple have more than 10.000 active businesses in EU AppStore? They have millions
Do they have 45 million active users in eu? They have hundreds of millions.
Do they:
A) earn more than 7.5 billion€ a year for the last 3 years? Yes they have earned 90 billion last year and more than 10 billion since 2010.
AND OR
B) have a market cap above 75 billion? Doesn’t matter they fulfill criteria A already.
And the judge will laugh at and proceed to dismiss such a poor argument.
What if Apple closes up shop and distributes the cash value of the company to the shareholders? Because that’s just as likely as what you’re suggesting. Simply laughable.
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Then nothing happens, they only have the label gatekeepers. It's like saying what happens if you don't break the law in front of the cops... nothing happens.
1: doing it willingly? If they still break the regulation? they will be fined for systematically breaking the rules and still be fined for trying to play the system knowingly. Just how you try to cheat at casinos, and they will kick you out.
get fined up to 10% global revenue, 5% of global daily revenue when stalling. and up to 30% if systemically abusing the legal system and eventual sales ban or breakup of any subsidiary as a last resort.
Plus any business harmed by their actions can sue for damages and likely win.
2: they do it willingly but follow the regulation? Nothing will happen, and they will stay classified as a gatekeeper and still have to follow the rules until they no longer have a dominant position.
3: they do it unwillingly because their business out of nowhere falls down a cliff? They can appeal to be removed as a gatekeeper and will be allowed to function as any small business, up untill they meat the requirments again.
you can ger answers to 99.999% of your text by reading teh actual text.
EU law can be read by anyone and you don't need a law degree to understand it.
many US laws or regulations are longer than the nations entire legal text.
Nothing in the rules say they can't do it willingly.
It doesn't matter how they disqualify themselves from being considered a gatekeeper. All that matter is that they do disqualify themselves from being from being considered a gatekeeper.
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Maybe -- maybe not. Courts do this all the time and this argument, is in fact, a common one made in court. This is how legislative intent and context come into play.
And your opinion is that legislative intent and context would lead the judge to conclude that the law was written to only apply to companies on EU exchanges??
No, that's not my opinion. I am merely pointing out that unless it is defined in the legislation it is, in fact, open to judicial interpretation. And, in the absence of such explicit legislative language, I cannot say (nor should you) that a "judge will laugh at and proceed to dismiss such a poor argument."
"The Commission shall designate as a gatekeeper, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 17, any undertaking providing core platform services that meets each of the requirements of paragraph 1 of this Article [core platform service, significant impact on market, foreseeably entrenched and durable position], but does not satisfy each of the [quantitative] thresholds in paragraph 2 of this Article."
👉 That's why your "we're artificially lowering our revenue for a year" to circumvent the legislation won't fly.
Sounds as genius an idea as shooting yourself in the foot with a shotgun - just so you don't have to visit your in-laws.
...and don't have to admit that to your spouse.
The catch: There's a good chance (s)he will still wheel you off to them in a wheelchair.
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You must have missed the part where pointed out that they can designate a gatekeeper even if it does not satisfy the quantitative requirements in the first place.
I mean, Apple isn't willingly going to get rid of its market cap...
...nor won't they get rid of this number of businesses in the EU.
Unless, of course, they'll basically close up shop in the EU.
Which is, since you're so much into theoretical scenarios, a possibility - but practically a ridiculous idea, given they're a for-profit company with considerable economies of scale, that makes billions in the EU.
Perhaps you find it difficult to sort reasoned and rational arguments from those that are not, but I do not. Most judges don’t have that problem either. In case you missed it, this interpretation is coming from the same person who thinks it’s a good idea for Apple to shut down business in the EU and forgo nearly $100 billion every three years.
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You left out a lot of that part...
Yes, they can still designate them as gatekeeper, but additional considerations are in place... Please see section 8a.
With additional considerations, it just gives more opportunities for creative minds to come up with ways to circumvent this insanity.
Leaving so much to interpretation will also lead to more challenges in court.
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Not for Apple though - they're just too big.
Not for Apple's status as a gatekeeper though. They're just too big.
I can definitely imagine the commission and them going back and forth about the actual implementation details of the law. That Apple will be designated as a gatekeeper is out of the question though. And that they're basically closing up shop in Europe just to "escape" that regulation is just ridiculous fanboi internet fantasy.
Again, this is something that will be debated in court... There's just too much left up to interpretation.
I have never suggested the exit the EU market. I'm certain they will think of everything possible to circumvent these rules.
Apple’s turnover, number of business users and market cap won’t be up for interpretation.
This law was designed to apply to Apple and Google - and it will.
That's not the part that will be contested. It's the new set of rules themselves.
I mean, heck, look at Roe v Wade. It was still being contested after 50 years...
I say screw the EU. They have no right telling companies what they can and can not do. If so then why not go after MicroSoft. Might as well make everything open source. Don't allow any company to allow anything to be proprietary. Such a joke the power grabs the EU is doing.