[kitchencabinetforum] EPPUR SI MUOVE ALMUNIA!

Joaquin Almunia, over the last two years, took eleven cartel decisions in a variety of sectors ranging from consumer goods, such as detergents, to industrial products, such as Cathode Ray Tube glass. Galileo muttered the phrase Eppur si muove, And yet it moves, after being forced
to recant in 1633, before the Inquisition, his belief that the Earth moves
around the Sun. Similarly the new inquisition of regulators force executives to admit something they did not do, in order to get smaller penalties. Eppur si muove!

Almunia's activity slowed down a bit last year – when he imposed fines for a total of €614 million in four decisions – with respect to 2010, when he imposed fines for €2.9 billion in seven decisions. But this fact does not imply at all a change in Almunia's priorities. Almunia is working on a number of major cases and his harassment will likely be higher this year. In addition, over the last 18 months Almunia has also carried out several inspections and received many applications for leniency.

There is an Antitrust Armageddon in Europe between tiptop companies and Fourth
Reich(EU). Eurokleptocrats are willing to do anything in order to get kickbacks
from industry leaders. The European antitrust laws have the unfortunate
consequence of harming Europeans by chilling innovation and discouraging
competition. Instead of protecting competition, EU laws protect competitors who
give kickbacks to kleptocrats! Kickback is the lubricant that allows a European
industry to run smoothly! No European machinery can run without lubricant! Eppur
si muove! http://venitism.blogspot.com

Almunia's fight against cartels has not been and should not be affected by the crisis. Cartels can do more harm to the economy and to consumer welfare in difficult times than in periods of economic expansion; so Almunia's level of harassment, if anything, should be even greater.

European antitrust law is wielded most often by favor-seeking businessmen and their kleptocrat allies. Instead of focusing on new and better products, disgruntled rivals try to exploit the law by consorting with kleptocrats. EU officials routinely direct antitrust regulators to bend the rules in pursuit of political ends. In reality, the threat of abusive EC power is far larger than the threat of oligopoly. Eppur si muove!

Almunia has noticed one difference related to the crisis in his practice; an increase in the number of inability-to-pay requests. Almunia assesses each application with great care. Since November 2009, when the new ITP methodology was introduced, Almunia has examined 41 applications and granted a reduction of the fine 13 times.

The only viable definition of monopoly is a grant of privilege from the government. It
therefore becomes quite clear that it is impossible for the government to
decrease monopoly by passing punitive laws. The only way for the government to
decrease monopoly is to remove its own monopoly grants. The antitrust laws,
therefore, do not in the least diminish monopoly. What they do accomplish is to
impose a continual, capricious harassment of efficient business enterprise.

Another aspect that is worth mentioning in this area is the growing importance of the settlement procedure. Three of the four decisions adopted in 2011 were settlements; namely in the consumer detergents, refrigeration compressors, and Cathode Ray Tube glass cases. Almunia welcome this development, because settlements allow him to carry out his duties with shorter proceedings.

When a company is forward-thinking, proactive, innovative, and productive, it will
produce good products that customers want to buy. As a result, it will win a
large market share. If the company is much better than its competitors, it might
win most, or almost all, of the market. This is the case with Microsoft. It has
earned its market share by producing good products that customers want to buy.

Many companies involved in a cartel prefer to come clean, settle the issue, and quickly resume business – obviously, after reviewing their practices to stay on the safe side of the law. But this does not mean that settlements are possible in all cases. Indeed, neither of the two decisions Almunia has taken so far in 2012 has been a settlement. In the first case, Almunia imposed a fine of €169 million on a global cartel of freight forwarders; in the second, nine European producers of mountings for windows were fined €86 million.

A company that wins a large market through its own productive efforts deserves
accolades. This is because justice, morally, tells us that we must reward the
good. However, to the government, a large market share is taken as evidence of
anti-competitive behavior, which makes the company a target for antitrust
action. This seems to be the motive behind the antitrust suits against Microsoft and Google.

Almunia says the fines of nearly all of these nine companies would have reached 10% of their total turnover. Given this specific situation, Almunia reduced the fines taking into account the mono-product nature of the companies and their different degrees of involvement in the cartel. This was possible because the fines reached a sufficient level of deterrence even after the reduction.

To punish the good because it is good is the most vile inversion of
justice conceivable. Yet this is the essence of antitrust, and this is exactly
what antitrust is doing to Microsoft and Google. Microsoft and Google are being targeted because they are good at their business, because they are successful, because they are competent. Nothing could be more unjust than this.

Almunia points out cartels tend to be set up in mature industries, where the temptation is stronger for companies to protect margins that are not invigorated by expanding demand and new products. But in the field of antitrust the new players of the knowledge economy are not free from temptation.

If you want to produce something in America or Fourth Reich, you'd better play
the game. Contribute to politicians' campaigns, hire their friends, go hat in
hand to a hearing, and apologize for your success. In a parasite economy no good
deed goes unpunished for long. Kleptocrats, seeing an opportunity to extend
their power and rake in some campaign cash and kickbacks, are circling like
sharks. When executives don't show up when kleptocrats invite them, all it does
is to increase kleptocrats' interest in what executives are doing and why they
do not show up.

After the sector enquiry in the pharmaceutical sector that Almunia concluded in 2009, he has opened four antitrust cases involving several companies including Servier, Lundbeck, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis. Beyond their specificities, these cases have one aspect in common; Almunia needs to make sure that the companies have not extended their market exclusivity beyond the limits granted by their legitimate IPRs.

Kleptocrats are costing trillions of euros and dollars every year. The brilliant
minds of Silicon Valley of California and Redmond of Washington State, are going to waste time and energy on protecting their companies instead of thinking up new products and new ways to deliver them to consumers. Dragging smaller companies into the political swamps is just the latest diversion of West's productive resources into the unproductive world of political predation.

Almunia notes the use and misuse of patents is also closely linked to the more specific area of standard-essential patents – which are crucially important in many industries, especially in IT. It is clear that EU-wide standards can make market integration easier; allow companies to market their goods and services across Europe and the world; and ensure the interoperability of many products, such as communication devices.

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European antitrust laws lead to huge corruption, because government officials
ask for kickbacks in order to erase the alleged violation. The standard kickback
in EU is 10% of the erased penalty! Many Greek officials were caught on tape
asking for the corrupt tithe! Many European political parties make up their
election expenses from kickbacks on antitrust cases! This is the worst possible
blackmail, where tiptop ethical companies are held hostage by European
kleptocrats. Eppur si muove!

Google has been harassed by Eurokleptocrats since November 2010. The Commission could fine Google up to 10 percent of global revenues - nearly $40 billion last year - and order changes to its operations. In the past, companies campaigned aggressively against EU harassment and faced stiff fines. Harasser-in-chief Almunia hoodwinks Google business practices are abuses of dominance. Almunia demands Google to give away aspects of its search algorithms - its Web search instructions, a secret comparable to the formula for Coca-Cola!

Microsoft was accused in 1998 of not giving rivals enough information to design products that could work with its dominant Windows PC operating system, a case broadened in 2000 to include video players. In 2004, it was fined 497 million euros and went on the attack, funding lobby groups to push its case. Bill Gates told reporters Microsoft's rivals were trying to use EU regulators to castrate his new operating system. In 2008, EU regulators slapped Microsoft with the Commission's biggest-ever fine of 899 million euros for delaying changes it had demanded. The record was beaten in 2009 by a 1.06 billion euro fine on chipmaker Intel.

Google would not seek to antagonize regulators. They get it from Microsoft lesson. In Europe, harassers say you've violated the law because you didn't give competitors access to information and your intimate secrets! Companies tend to go to Europe as plaintiffs in abuse of dominance cases because they're more likely to get traction with the agencies. Eppur si muove!

In Europe, 85 percent of Web searches are run on Google, compared with 65 percent in the United States. Google's opponents say that means Google, which makes its money by advertising sales, can make or break a business by its ranking. They say Google is skewing the market to help its ventures in specialized searches such as travel. Eppur si muove!

Google points out users are not locked in, but can easily switch to an alternative, a crucial difference between cases where users can run only one computer operating system. It also says the complaints are basically a result of all companies wanting to turn up first in its search results. Not every website can come out on top, or even appear on the first page of Google results. So there will always be website owners who are unhappy about their rankings. Eppur si muove!

Google also points out that it faces increasing competition, online and on mobiles, from companies such as Facebook. Competition on the web has increased dramatically in the last two years since the Commission started looking at this and the competitive pressures Google faces are tremendous. Innovation online has never been greater.

Any disciplinary action could lead to more than a fine. An adverse EU decision may spark damages claims in other jurisdictions worldwide. Seven months after the EU announced its investigation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched its own probe into Google's business practices. The greater risk is to Google's business model, which will have to be modified in order to satisfy a variety of regulators who reflect different laws, different economic factors, and different cultures, different kleptocrats, and different bribes. Eppur si muove!

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