This has nothing to do with the App Store. It's about colluding to price-fix with their French wholesalers. FTA:
> “Apple and its two wholesalers agreed not to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products”
Classic anti-trust case. In cases like this I always wonder whether corps like Apple already priced the fines in or not. But than there is still the perosonal liability angle.
$1.2B appropriate? It’s hard for me to tell in this case because I don’t know the size of the market they colluded to capture.
Did Apple gain more than $1.2B in profits? Is this just a cost of doing business? There are so many cases when the fine is worth the expense, like advertising.
I would much rather see a corporation be banned from a sector for a period of time when they get caught, in addition to a fine.
Wells Fargo gets caught creating fake credit card accounts for customers? Wells Fargo can no longer sign up new credit card customers for 2 years.
Equafax leaked everyone’s social security numbers? You are banned from accepting new customers for 3 years.
The punishments I'm suggesting are off-the-cuff but some sort of corporate business practice penalty is more fitting than just a fine.
It also gives the company time to correct the problem before they continue to do business in that sector.
'Ultimately, the prosecutor’s office came to believe the case was “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of suspicious transactions conducted through HSBC, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and reported earlier this year.'
As it should be. But the "cost of doing business" theory can survive the fine being much bigger than the provable ill-gotten profits. It's just smaller then the overall ill-gotten profits.
In this case it actually wasn't though. The case was never tried. In the US the government can impose huge fines for AML violations directly, without ever having to prove their case. Combined with a culture of hyper-aggressive prosecutors and you don't really get justice in the traditional sense. Dig into the details and you'll see that HSBC's "crime" looks very different to how it's been publicly portrayed.
They sabotaged their own money laundering filters: they edited e.g. "Pablo Escobar" to "Pablo Escobar-", so that that activity wouldn't get flagged. What are your optics of that?
So the USG claims. But they claim many things; without a trial and a proper defence who knows the truth? A lot of the claims in that case were dubious, like the idea that every transaction connected to Mexico should have been treated as inherently suspicious. Why? Well, because the Treasury decided that would have been convenient for their case. What about the huge numbers of non-suspicious Mexican transactions? Irrelevant - HSBC should have institutionally "just known".
Price fixing at the scale Apple operates. Apple made $267B in revenue (not profit) last year. This fine is 0.44% of that amount. Assuming this price fixing had gone on for multiple years, it would be shocking if they didn't make much more than 1.2T on it.
What percentage of Apple's revenue comes from France?
French courts are concerned with price fixing in France, and I'm not sure that price fixing in France amounted to $1.2B additional profit. It's not that large of a market.
It's not clear to me that Apple made any money directly in the (alleged) price fixing scheme. All the items sold to consumers were ultimately manufactured by Apple, and I don't think it's disputed that Apple can set the prices it charges distributors (or the prices it charges consumers for items sold through the Apple Store itself).
What Apple is NOT allowed to do is tell distributors how much to charge THEIR customers. But that does not directly affect their bottom line; if anything, it's more of a long term effect of price stability or a certain structure of distributor networks.
The corporation has owners and operators. These fines rightfully hit the owners. I would suggest that fines also hit the operators.
If Tim Cook paid $200 million dollar fine or went to jail for 15 days for this, internal controls and compliance would be rock solid.
I think of the Madoff scandal. If Greg Katz[1], Saul Katz[2]
and Fred Wilpon[3] had been jailed, we might avoid the next company that followed Sterling Equities lead in enable a huge fraud. These guys were next to the fraud for 20 years and skated with a fine. Just an example.
Punish individuals not just
companies. James Surowiecki wrote about it in the New Yorkerin 2014, SEC chair Chair Jay Clayton has mentioned it in 2017, and Biden mentioned it last night in the debate.
I, for one, would be immediately leaving my C-level position in a startup out of the fear that one of my colleagues is doing something terribly wrong behind my back. I - really - dont think that's the cas. But if there is the slightest chance that I might end up behind bars and get my life upside down because a judge thinks I am responsible as well, I will close the company and fire all employees - it's just not worth it.
At a minimum the executives should lose their net worth. We are always told that they do the risky work which means that they should also have downside risk. When you look at executives at Wells Fargo, Equifax and other companies it seems they have huge upside when nothing goes wrong, or smaller but still very big side upside when things go wrong under their watch.
The question is where the limits of liability and rewards are. I don’t think the sky high executive salaries that have developed over the last decades are the foundation of modern capitalism.
There's an enormous gap between undoing limited liability and egregious compensation. Many people agree that over-compensation is a problem, but undoing limited liability spells the end of anything like a market economy, and takes the US dramatically backward.
My parents just filed for bankruptcy because the Trump tariffs killed their import business. Should they also be homeless now? That's what comes of what you originally suggested.
As you've already been told, Limited Liability Corporations are part of the foundation of modern prosperity. That is a completely and totally separate issue from illegal activity, and your conflation of the two is incorrect.
Illegal activity is already punishable, and the fact that it generally isn't punished is not at all related to limited liability, but to political will[0][1].
It does nobody any good to lash out without understanding the issues.
Limited liability applies to the owners of the company. If the company goes bankrupt, the company goes bankrupt. The owners are not personally liable. It doesn’t have anything in particular to do with what punishment is appropriate for an individual who harms the public and the owner as agent of the owner and management of the company.
That sounds reasonable to me, much better than what we have today. If you're not trusting your employees or practices to follow the law, you should either be improving that situation so you do trust them, or not operate a business.
Right now, working in a white-collar job, there is no fear of punishment, which is why we're seeing so many companies and executives skipping the law. Or they make a cost-profit equation, and figures out that the fine is worth the profits the crime would pay.
Edit: actually, the more I read and try to understand your point of view, the more I'm afraid of your position. You're already worried that your colleagues might be "doing something terribly wrong behind [your] back", but you're all fine with that, as long as you don't get punished? Isn't "I am responsible" one of the justification executives use for their high salary? The whole point of being the manager of others is to take responsibility over them. Sounds like you don't want that.
Mmmm... to offer a counterpoint. Unless you are putting spyware on every company computer and have cameras all about, there are likely some things your employees are doing that you don't know about (not necessarily illegal data breach, just, you can't track it all without invading their privacy quite a bit).
I think it might be better to put a 'without due dilligence' clause if something like this were to be the law.
One other thing... it's kinda hard for salespeople to do their job without a list of people to contact... there are some jobs where you implicitly have to trust people with data... those are sources of data leaks as well, and there's not much you can do other than to hire people you trust, I'm afraid :/
Just my two cents, hope your having a good day (and stay well)
I don’t think anybody is asking for executives to be responsible for every little act of wrongdoing. Most examples of corporate wrongdoing were widely known throughout the company and often caused by unrealistic expectations from above. I work in medical devices and I have seen it multiple times that leadership pushed unreasonable deadlines while ignoring warnings. I don’t think anything illegal has happened so far but I can easily see how somebody could take shortcuts just to relieve the pressure. So while the executives didn’t do anything wrong personally they created a climate that could cause illegal activity. This certainly happened at Wells Fargo and I bet a lot of other companies.
Many C level executives earn a literal fortune every year, with compensation packages in case of dismissal that would make anyone's eyes water. Accepting/demanding that but brushing off any risk and demanding to be considered immune from any repercussions even when it comes to major acts of mismanagement seems a bit unreasonable.
This isn't for any minor misstep from an employee. Rather for not putting in place enough safeguards to avoid that result. Or the CxO turned a blind eye to this happening although all the signs were there. Or worse, they directed it. Look at the captain of a ship to see what the responsibility could look like.
As for the "I'd rather close the company than risk going to jail", I don't think that would be the case even for current levels of compensation. A mistake driving a car could easily kill or land the driver in jail (and this happens all the time). And the benefits of driving a car are far lower than what some of the above mentioned C level execs can get from that position.
Before you advocate punishing private company managers, consider holding government employees, managers, and politicians to the same standard. Every manager in government should be sure that the people who report to him or her are following the law, else, the manager gets fined and goes to jail.
I don't think anyone is saying this shouldn't be the case either.
Its also red herring, to be completely honest.
I would even argue that much of the corruption we see in politics is in large part because private companies can get away with so much with so little consequence in the first place.
In either case, I 100% agree with the assertion here.
That would be considered corruption and would be normally be persecuted as government employees are considered to have a duty of care to the public they serve.
> government employees are considered to have a duty of care to the public they serve.
Which public? A building inspector serves the public but can make a new business owner’s life hell with arbitrary interpretations of the rules. That business owner is just as much “the public” as a random citizen. So if a business opening is delayed because some inspector drags his feet, loses paperwork, or goes on vacation, that isn’t “corruption,” but it does have a material impact on the business owner. So perhaps that building inspector should go to jail for not approving construction quickly enough? If a building permit office loses or misplaces paperwork (which happens all the time,) should that entire office be imprisoned? If not, why not? Surely causing significant construction delays for a small business has more impact that some random App Store decisions. It’s optional to deal with Apple, you don’t have a choice when dealing with government.
Your colleagues, maybe not, but certainly you are culpable for your direct reports. And we are not talking about rogue employees here performing one-off acts such as absconding with private/privileged data, but rather an institution-wide mode of operation that is deliberate and determined by a favourable cost-profit analysis.
Yes, if you advocate that or even tacitly support it, you should definitely stand to lose your shirt. If that’s too much for you, gardening is always available as an occupation. Others will be happy to fill your shoes.
Ex: If you are the CEO of Juul, you definitely need to go to jail. I see Juul marketed to kids everywhere. Once science confirms that it’s just as harmful as cigarettes, I want all the C-levels in jail and their fortunes stripped. I don’t for one second believe that they thought such a product could not possibly be harmful. They are there to make a profit, end-user health be damned.
We are responsible for our own actions and not the actions of our children or siblings nor employees.
This might be surprising, but that is a relatively new concept. It was quite common in the ancient world to execute people for crimes their family or clan did.
I suggest being very careful overriding millennia of legal precedent and human rights laws because you're upset about something Apple did. Almost everytime pitchforks get drawn and torches lit it ends badly--regardless of which side of the pitchforks you're on.
> Your colleagues, maybe not, but certainly you are culpable for your direct reports.
Should we jail parents if their children commit crimes? If anything, a parent has more influence upon their child than a manager has upon a direct report.
I feel like people often forget that the law clearly holds people responsible for things that they did intentionally and willfully. Which is to say, being able to jail C-level executives would not allow you to be jailed because your employees did something without telling you. It would allow you to be jailed when you make a decision that gets people killed or causes some other significant harm.
Instead of fining the nebulous company that you are a part of, you would be held responsible for your choices.
> It would allow you to be jailed when you make a decision that gets people killed or causes some other significant harm.
This is incredibly nebulous. All decisions involve tradeoffs. One or two people die because of a decision to go with one car brake over the more expensive? If "increasing greenhouse gases" significant harm? Good luck ever trying to make anything - there will be a non stop line of people trying to sue the executives of any company they don't like.
No one is looking to jail people who did not break the law. If you knew one of your colleagues was doing something illegal and you let it slide or even participated, then by all means you should be held to account. If they did it without your knowledge or consent, then you'd be fine. This willingness to immediately threaten to hurt your employees financially at the mere suggestion of increased accountability for criminal actions is a great example of how a sense of entitlement and an addiction to the VC model has turned our economy into a fragile and easily corrupted mess.
It would go way waaay higher. Especially for large corporations where there is probably always somebody at some level trying something shady. I could easily see it go 10x for the largest corporations. Trying to make C-level officers criminally responsible for others' behavior at the corporation would basically push the pay gap much wider.
Even for small companies, executive pay would at least double. And that isn't just going to come out of profits. The lower wage earners will take a hit too, especially if they have to be watched all the time.
And none of that "if you don't trust them then don't hire them" bs. Do you realize how difficult that would make finding a job? Your background would be gone through with a fine tooth comb.
I don't think supporters of this are thinking it through nearly enough. This would be the mother of all unintended consequences.
> If Tim Cook paid $200 million dollar fine or went to jail for 15 days for this, internal controls and compliance would be rock solid.
If Tim Cook paid a $200 million dollar fine and went to jail for 15 days for this, he'd run the company from jail for 15 days and then get a $300 million dollar bonus the next year.
You can't get at this by punishing the executives if the consequences still benefit the shareholders, because otherwise all they'll do is increase executive compensation to offset the legal risks. There are plenty of people who would be willing to go to jail for years if there was a hundred million dollars in it for them.
It's the same reason calibrating the fines right is nearly impossible. Go under and it's no deterrent, go over and you're just bankrupting everybody and putting innocent people out of work.
The better solutions are the ones that repair the damage (or prevent it). Don't allow large companies to buy their competitors, or leverage a strong position in one market into a strong position in another, or enter into price fixing agreements etc. This is all basic antitrust stuff and the problem isn't that it doesn't work, it's that it isn't being enforced.
I agree the lapse in antitrust in the last 20 years has not helped the problem of corporate crime.
To address the offsetting compensation, perhaps harsher penalties. Some level of punishment exceeds the economic value of the crime, maybe that where it needs to be aimed? I agree calibration is hard. We’re currently at zero. I bet the number should be higher.
Failing European economies where the workers look down on technical work will continue to look for ways to tax US corporations. Apple may have some monopolistic practices, but a larger problem in Europe is as I stated, a work force not inclined, interested, and put off by the "low status" of being a programmer. They will continue to pursue aggressive legal tactics to stop the domination of FAANG tech products, but the real answer is legislation and action that foster growth of tech companies and start ups.
You're getting downvoted to oblivion for telling the truth, because that truth is painful and tastes horrible.
The EU is going to unleash tens of billions in fines at US tech companies in the coming decade, because they can't compete and now they have a large hole in their budget thanks to the Brexit [1], which can conveniently be filled with fines. It's obvious what they're going to do.
The only proper response is subtle economic war on the part of the US directed at France and Germany. And we will do exactly that. We'll use every practical lever we possess to harm their corporations in retribution. It's fair game. It's a mistake on the part of the EU, the US is radically stronger in every respect. If they're not careful, the EU will end up as an economic colony of China - perhaps appropriate given history.
"European Union leaders will clash this week over the EU’s 2021-2027 budget as Britain’s exit leaves a 75 billion euro ($81 billion) hole in the bloc’s finances just as it faces costly challenges such as becoming carbon neutral by 2050. "
I recommend you to stop reading only americans news/propaganda.
Read a bit of everything, even it's propaganda.
You'll discover what you considered as a news source is also propaganda.
It was not about the article that he linked but his point of view. What i seen in his point of view is a story that US media try to sell: Europe will fine america because europe is no longer competitive.
In fact, Boeing won recently a case against Airbus at WTO because europe financed indirectly Airbus by favoring unfairly Airbus contract.
I predict that in a few year, Airbus will win recently a case against Boieng for the same reason.
The EU's total GDP is $18.8 trillion, which is very close to the GDP of the US, and much larger than the GDP of China.
The total EU budget is much less than 1% of that, and is entirely discretionary spending on long-term strategic policy goals, infrastructure, and social investment.
And having a "costly" challenge of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 is a lot more realistic than the US policy on carbon neutrality, which is "We'll get back to you on that, but probably not until the coastal flooding and economy-destroying extreme weather events becomes impossible to ignore."
Yes, but the EU budget is special in several ways.
One is that they can't directly control most tax rates. The EU isn't funded by direct income taxation, for instance. But they can raise funds via fines, which aren't tried in court and go directly into the EU's own budget (there's a huge conflict of interest here).
Another is that the EU's budget normally only ever goes up. It's a part of the whole plan for the EU to constantly subsume more and more from national governments. The obvious view of the EU is it has a budget so it can provide services but this isn't how the EU officials themselves see it. That's why the fight over the Brexit budget hole is so bitter. Someone unfamiliar with the EU might think, well, the EU is smaller now, so it should be just fine with a correspondingly smaller budget. But it's not that way because the size of the budget is psychological. If it shrinks it's the project going into reverse, not a mere re-allocation of service resources.
I think we keep seeing dubious fines by the EU against US tech firms and although it's unpopular, I tend to agree with adventured. A lot of these fines are enormous and backed by no real robust system of justice. A government simply decrees without trial that a tech firm must pay them a billion euros. A billion here, a few hundred million there - it starts to add up. From the EU perspective sucking gold out of tech firms is not only free money but even better, populist free money, because they can demonise these companies and claim to be fighting for the consumer. Whether they actually are or not doesn't get a close look.
> The only proper response is subtle economic war on the part of the US directed at France and Germany. And we will do exactly that. We'll use every practical lever we possess to harm their corporations in retribution. It's fair game.
This has been going on since the beginning of time. Governments take stronger action against foreign entities than domestic ones. US turned a blind eye to GM knowingly allowing over 100 people to be killed due to a known faulty part but burned VW for the pollution. EU turned a blind eye to VW polluting but burned Apple for antitrust violations. Both unions acted well within law and reason when fining the foreign entities. But this is how things go. Local lobbies are usually far stronger than foreign ones so the path of least resistance means you can easier enact justice on foreign companies.
> It's a mistake on the part of the EU, the US is radically stronger in every respect.
It's stronger because it has allies like the EU. There's the distinct risk that every ally that the US alienates invariably turns to the East. And it's not like anyone (US included, not counting armchair warriors) wants any kind of open conflict (military or economic), this shoots everyone in the foot. Sometimes even when on the winning side people may be less prepared for the hardships of such conflict than the ones on the losing side.
It could be that you only see the Apple and Intel getting fines from EU because this is the only stories that are big enough for HN of whatever newspaper you read.
Do you doubt the illegality of the process? Seems to me that american are trying to ignore the laws, similar with the case of the person that killed a person in a driving accident and then flees from UK, it is a giant fuck you small countries, our army is bigger so your laws are insignificant--- don't forget the new Disney laws otherwise you might regret it.
> Apple may have some monopolistic practices, but a larger problem in Europe is as I stated, a work force not inclined, interested, and put off by the "low status" of being a programmer.
I've never seen any reasonable person look down on developers, IT-consultants, sysadmins etc, and I've lived in Europe my whole life. Yes, you'll get the occasional academic that studied the humanities and is pissed off that techies are paid more and asked to solve society's problems instead of him but that's pretty much it. Tech will almost guarantee a safe job and an income above the average. You just might hit the average income when you're starting out if you're in the right place. Who's looking down on that?
> They will continue to pursue aggressive legal tactics to stop the domination of FAANG tech products, but the real answer is legislation and action that foster growth of tech companies and start ups.
You can't create a cultural environment with legislation. Not that there's not a lot to do, but it's not that easy.
Also, I think they're very right to limit the power of US-West-Coast-Corporations. Search, Social Networks, News etc are too central to any nation to let them be provided by a foreign entity.
Pay for engineers in Europe is abysmal for programmers. And not just absolutely, also relatively to the rest of European professions. In contrast, the United States has extremely high compensation for programmers with respect to other careers. Status is about money. And Europe doesn’t pay technical workers and by and large sees no reason to.
Maybe you're talking about a different part of Europe. I'm in Germany, you'll quickly make more as a developer in a non-leadership role than you will in other careers in leadership roles.
Sure, the difference isn't as big as it is in the US, but you don't have to be a rock star to make twice the average income with 10, 15 years experience.
If you expect to be treated as a god, being treated as a king may seem like an insult, but I think the difference to the US is mostly the European set up: you won't rise as high, you won't fall as deep. I don't see any general dislike for IT.
In the past, I believe Apple has certainly placed limits on what prices Wal-Mart or Amazon could sell Apple products at, to avoid the appearance of them being "discounted" or customers shopping around -- your iPhone is $x99 no matter where you buy it, period. (They seem to have loosened up somewhat since.)
Should that be illegal? For a company to say "I'll sell you this wholesale stock only on the condition you only resell it for exactly $x and never less."
Is there a meaningful distinction here from supermarkets in an area colluding to sell all milk an inflated price? Or is it really the same anti-consumer, anti-competitive behavior in the end?
And I wonder to what extent it has to do with defining the price on an entire category of items (milk) vs a single company (you can always buy an Android instead).
I don't know the answer, so just curious if there's any kind of consensus conclusion here by economists.
A single company setting a price for its own product, for which viable alternatives exist in the same category at different price points, is a very different animal than a group of suppliers using their monopoly status on a product category to inflate prices for their own profit.
Except that it's exactly what allows that to happen.
If MegaCorp says they sell widgets wholesale for $7 and you must sell them retail for $10, everybody sells them retail for $10 and makes $3. Meanwhile BigCorp does the same thing for for the widgets they make and all the widgets retail for $10. Nobody can lower their prices except the manufacturers who are few enough to be secretly colluding, so no price competition commences.
Without this, BoxCo starts buying widgets for $7 and retailing them for $9. Which, immediately, is a lower price for the consumer. Then another shop without BoxCo's scale starts pressuring MegaCorp to give them widgets for $6.50 instead of $7 so they can compete with BoxCo's $9, which the manufacturer wants because they don't want BoxCo to have a retail monopoly on their goods. So now more retailers are selling for $9 retail to the benefit of the customer.
Then BigCorp has to lower their wholesale prices so their retailers can compete with MegaCorp retailers selling for $9, and so on.
Price fixing is enabled by fixing prices.
Or to put it another way, enforced MSRP is a conspiracy to fix prices on the part of the retailers coordinated through the manufacturer.
Yes, in this very case, it means French customers don’t profit from the benefits of a free market (i.e. a competitive price) because the price was fixed. The problem here is that all customers that would buy a product for amount X, but don’t buy it at Y (the fixed price, which is greater than X), won’t buy it just because of the fixed price. Which effectively cuts those customers off from the product. The French obviously want to maximize their consumers‘ access to such products.
Unless your point is that the pricing is actually varied in France, this antitrust decision reads like selective enforcement of market regulations -- protectionism.
The price is actually varied in France and this decision has nothing to do with protectionism. Similar decision happened previously against French companies (ex: Michelin).
> The provenance of a company has nothing to do about the market regulation of the buyer country of residence.
If a law is selectively enforced against foreign entities, provenance suddenly does matter. That is my only point. It undermines the spirit of free trade and invites retaliation, leaving everyone worse off.
The implied populism is disturbing. There are no facts presented, everyone is jumping on memes.
The TC article [1] has considerably more information though still missing some fine points.
The details of the charges are not going to benefit from transparency, as it doesn't look like some kind of solid case - it seems that Apple was engaged in some otherwise normal business practices.
They required their resellers to sell at certain price points, and during times of short supply, they favoured some channels over others. This is not anti-competitive really, it's normal practice.
If the French government applied such rules fairly and broadly there are probably any number of businesses that would be found to be committing such practices.
The French have been outdone in so many areas, they're now engaged in a new form of a trade war, which is simply to grab surpluses of foreign companies as they can. And who, even among intelligent, literate people who are responsible enough to grasp material facts is going to care one bit?
It's perfectly fine if France and the EU want to be more assertive in applying their legislation, but the rules have to be clear, they have to be applied impartially and universally, not in a punitive manner.
Even better, France needs to produce exceptional companies that produce surpluses - much better to be in a situation where you have 'the great companies' and the risk is having someone DJ Trump screaming murder, as opposed to digging up dirt on otherwise well run companies in your own borders.
Also - the EU's ridiculous taxation scheme, which allows Google and FB to declare most of their profits in Ireland and skip paying taxes in France is their problem, not the problem of foreign nationals who are just following the laws. The architect of said massive loopholes is none other than outgoing EU Commission Pres. JC Junker, so the hypocrisy there is nigh.
> The French have been outdone in so many areas, they're now engaged in a new form of a trade war, which is simply to grab surpluses of foreign companies as they can. And who, even among intelligent, literate people who are responsible enough to grasp material facts is going to care one bit?
When the US fines foreign banks, VW group and others for incredibly higher amounts of money, it's fair-game but when France fines a US company after an 8 years investigation, it's not, and the authorities don't even get the benefit of doubt that maybe they know what they are doing and have a solid case? You don't have any basis to make such a statement that this is only about some revenge.
France was one of the top markets for Apple and had 20 years ago a vibrant network of small retailers dedicated to Apple hardware (without comparison with the distribution situation in the USA). That went downhill once Apple started its online store and then its physical stores. Maybe it's just survival of the fittest, or maybe Apple also tipped the balance in a way that's not ethical or maybe even not legal. That's why we have such government bodies as "Autorité de la Concurrence".
> it seems that Apple was engaged in some otherwise normal business practices.
The "Autorité de la Concurrence" probably has the best grasp compared to anyone on HN regarding what is "normal business practices" and what the law allows in France, which is not the USA.
From TC article, the accusations are rather quite specific:
=======================
The competition commissioner noted that Apple and its partners violated three specific areas:
— Apple and the two wholesalers agreed not to compete with each other and also to prevent other distributors to compete on price, “thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products.”
— Secondly, premium distributors were forced to keep prices high to keep them at the same level as those of integrated distributors.
— Third, Apple has “abused the economic dependence” of these premium distributors, by subjecting them to unfair and unfavorable commercial conditions compared to its network of integrated distributors. (These last two points relate specifically to the accusations eBizcuss had lodged against the company.)
=======================
It was a known fact at the time (10 years back or so) that independent Apple retailers were not getting stock from Apple for certain products and therefore couldn't meet demand from their customers. There were even some "hot" products that could only be bought from apple.com or its own physical stores. I don't know if some of these practices were illegal or not (that's why we have government bodies to act as arbiters and enforcers of the rules), but it certainly didn't help the retailers.
>>>> "When the US fines foreign banks, VW group and others for incredibly higher amounts of money, it's fair-game"
Who said this is 'fair game'?
>>>>> "France was one of the top markets for Apple and had 20 years ago a vibrant network "
A) '20 years ago' Apple was a completely different company, they were 1/20th the size. They are a completely different company, in every way.
B) 'France was one of the top markets'? Apple sales in France have dramatically increased during this time - so I don't understand this point.
C) Apple can distribute generally how they please as long as they're not breaking the law.
>>>> "The "Autorité de la Concurrence" probably has the best grasp compared to anyone on HN regarding what is "normal business practices"
So your argument is 'trust the authority of the French government because their logic is infallible' - while in the very same comment expressing that the US is engaged in 'arbitrary fining of foreign banks'?
No, we should not trust them at all, we should demand transparency.
>>>> As far as the specific points of law:
1) "Agreeing not to compete with one another". Really? Or is it that Apple required them to sell at specific prices - which is a very common practice.
If you are Apple, why would you engage in price collusion, which is illegal everywhere, when you can dictate end prices? You can 'force' the wholesalers 'not to compete' - this happens in every industry, all the time, and it's not illegal.
2) "premium distributors were forced to keep prices high"
This is not generally illegal and it's common practice!
3) "Apple has “abused the economic dependence” " - this is merely a claim, there's no substance behind it.
>>>>>>>>>>> "It was a known fact at the time that independent Apple retailers were not getting stock from Apple for certain products"
Having an amazingly hot product that is selling out everywhere is not illegal, and favoring some channels over others is not either.
But all of this is missing the point:
- Governments, US or French, applying regulatory law is important, obviously, it's important that actions are applied broadly, judiciously and with merit.
Swiss banks have been hiding tax cheaters, so it's pretty reasonable that the US would go after them. As far as other Trump-era fines, well it depends, obviously, he's engaged in some nasty stuff, but it doesn't justify the other way around.
- France is using their political and legal apparatuses as a means to grab revenue. Their economy is weak, they see this 'big American firns' making tons of cash, and they want some money. This is partly the motivation and its sad.
- There's a number of laws they could change that would more fairly derive revenue derived from Apple, FB, Google, for example, local taxes on ads, and of course, fixing the massive EU tax loopholes. This would be more consistent with 'good governance'.
- All of this is the loser's strategy. What they need is their own champions, which should be the primary focus. This will entail a whole set of reforms, and the willing effort and participation of the public at large as well.
Anti-Trust has always been a mechanism for politics to go after companies they did not like.
The first Anti-Trust law (state level) happened because Butchers faced unfair competition from centralized slaughter houses (the innovation they were fighting was refrigerated train transport).
You can go threw most of these laws and see that they were advocated and often financed by those industries that were being crushed by better performing competition.
The progressive would use Anti-Trust far all manner of political reasons. Sometimes cases where two merging companies didn't even capture 20% of the market, but it was opposed by well connected friends of the Progressive Party.
Standard Oil, now the bullet prove argument that Anti-Trust is good, actually delivered falling prices and higher quality to consumers threw-out its existence. They were opposed by politically connected oil producers and rail companies who wanted to keep prices high. Under modern Anti-Trust law they could not be fined, and common sense would suggest the same.
France is a great example of using Anti-Trust to benefit French firms and oppose non-French competition. Arbitrary enforcement is a key tool for them, the rules are vague enough that many could be found behaving anti-competitively but few are fined.
Anti-Trust is not what stands between capitalism and what Marx falsely believed about the 'inherent centralization of capital' but the waste majority of the time its a political power tool yielded by bureaucrats and politicians to protect their friends.
90 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadThe App Store has been poison to Apple and I've no idea why they didn't see it coming.
> “Apple and its two wholesalers agreed not to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products”
Did Apple gain more than $1.2B in profits? Is this just a cost of doing business? There are so many cases when the fine is worth the expense, like advertising.
I would much rather see a corporation be banned from a sector for a period of time when they get caught, in addition to a fine.
Wells Fargo gets caught creating fake credit card accounts for customers? Wells Fargo can no longer sign up new credit card customers for 2 years.
Equafax leaked everyone’s social security numbers? You are banned from accepting new customers for 3 years.
The punishments I'm suggesting are off-the-cuff but some sort of corporate business practice penalty is more fitting than just a fine.
It also gives the company time to correct the problem before they continue to do business in that sector.
They were fined 1.9 billion. People really need to stop with the 'cost of doing business' BS
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe/hsbc-to-pay-1-...
French courts are concerned with price fixing in France, and I'm not sure that price fixing in France amounted to $1.2B additional profit. It's not that large of a market.
So you’re speculating with no evidence? Let’s avoid the pitchforks until we actually have the data.
What Apple is NOT allowed to do is tell distributors how much to charge THEIR customers. But that does not directly affect their bottom line; if anything, it's more of a long term effect of price stability or a certain structure of distributor networks.
If Tim Cook paid $200 million dollar fine or went to jail for 15 days for this, internal controls and compliance would be rock solid.
I think of the Madoff scandal. If Greg Katz[1], Saul Katz[2] and Fred Wilpon[3] had been jailed, we might avoid the next company that followed Sterling Equities lead in enable a huge fraud. These guys were next to the fraud for 20 years and skated with a fine. Just an example.
Punish individuals not just companies. James Surowiecki wrote about it in the New Yorkerin 2014, SEC chair Chair Jay Clayton has mentioned it in 2017, and Biden mentioned it last night in the debate.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participants_in_the_Madoff_i...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Katz#Madoff_Ponzi_Schem...
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wilpon#Madoff_investmen...
My parents just filed for bankruptcy because the Trump tariffs killed their import business. Should they also be homeless now? That's what comes of what you originally suggested.
Illegal activity is already punishable, and the fact that it generally isn't punished is not at all related to limited liability, but to political will[0][1].
It does nobody any good to lash out without understanding the issues.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/books/review/the-chickens... [1] https://www.npr.org/2017/07/30/535799735/corporate-bungling-...
Right now, working in a white-collar job, there is no fear of punishment, which is why we're seeing so many companies and executives skipping the law. Or they make a cost-profit equation, and figures out that the fine is worth the profits the crime would pay.
Edit: actually, the more I read and try to understand your point of view, the more I'm afraid of your position. You're already worried that your colleagues might be "doing something terribly wrong behind [your] back", but you're all fine with that, as long as you don't get punished? Isn't "I am responsible" one of the justification executives use for their high salary? The whole point of being the manager of others is to take responsibility over them. Sounds like you don't want that.
I think it might be better to put a 'without due dilligence' clause if something like this were to be the law.
One other thing... it's kinda hard for salespeople to do their job without a list of people to contact... there are some jobs where you implicitly have to trust people with data... those are sources of data leaks as well, and there's not much you can do other than to hire people you trust, I'm afraid :/
Just my two cents, hope your having a good day (and stay well)
This isn't for any minor misstep from an employee. Rather for not putting in place enough safeguards to avoid that result. Or the CxO turned a blind eye to this happening although all the signs were there. Or worse, they directed it. Look at the captain of a ship to see what the responsibility could look like.
As for the "I'd rather close the company than risk going to jail", I don't think that would be the case even for current levels of compensation. A mistake driving a car could easily kill or land the driver in jail (and this happens all the time). And the benefits of driving a car are far lower than what some of the above mentioned C level execs can get from that position.
And nobody is dying from App Store policies. Violating a civil regulation is much different than violating criminal statutes.
Its also red herring, to be completely honest.
I would even argue that much of the corruption we see in politics is in large part because private companies can get away with so much with so little consequence in the first place.
In either case, I 100% agree with the assertion here.
Which public? A building inspector serves the public but can make a new business owner’s life hell with arbitrary interpretations of the rules. That business owner is just as much “the public” as a random citizen. So if a business opening is delayed because some inspector drags his feet, loses paperwork, or goes on vacation, that isn’t “corruption,” but it does have a material impact on the business owner. So perhaps that building inspector should go to jail for not approving construction quickly enough? If a building permit office loses or misplaces paperwork (which happens all the time,) should that entire office be imprisoned? If not, why not? Surely causing significant construction delays for a small business has more impact that some random App Store decisions. It’s optional to deal with Apple, you don’t have a choice when dealing with government.
Yes, if you advocate that or even tacitly support it, you should definitely stand to lose your shirt. If that’s too much for you, gardening is always available as an occupation. Others will be happy to fill your shoes.
Ex: If you are the CEO of Juul, you definitely need to go to jail. I see Juul marketed to kids everywhere. Once science confirms that it’s just as harmful as cigarettes, I want all the C-levels in jail and their fortunes stripped. I don’t for one second believe that they thought such a product could not possibly be harmful. They are there to make a profit, end-user health be damned.
This might be surprising, but that is a relatively new concept. It was quite common in the ancient world to execute people for crimes their family or clan did.
I suggest being very careful overriding millennia of legal precedent and human rights laws because you're upset about something Apple did. Almost everytime pitchforks get drawn and torches lit it ends badly--regardless of which side of the pitchforks you're on.
Should we jail parents if their children commit crimes? If anything, a parent has more influence upon their child than a manager has upon a direct report.
Instead of fining the nebulous company that you are a part of, you would be held responsible for your choices.
This is incredibly nebulous. All decisions involve tradeoffs. One or two people die because of a decision to go with one car brake over the more expensive? If "increasing greenhouse gases" significant harm? Good luck ever trying to make anything - there will be a non stop line of people trying to sue the executives of any company they don't like.
Even for small companies, executive pay would at least double. And that isn't just going to come out of profits. The lower wage earners will take a hit too, especially if they have to be watched all the time.
And none of that "if you don't trust them then don't hire them" bs. Do you realize how difficult that would make finding a job? Your background would be gone through with a fine tooth comb.
I don't think supporters of this are thinking it through nearly enough. This would be the mother of all unintended consequences.
If Tim Cook paid a $200 million dollar fine and went to jail for 15 days for this, he'd run the company from jail for 15 days and then get a $300 million dollar bonus the next year.
You can't get at this by punishing the executives if the consequences still benefit the shareholders, because otherwise all they'll do is increase executive compensation to offset the legal risks. There are plenty of people who would be willing to go to jail for years if there was a hundred million dollars in it for them.
It's the same reason calibrating the fines right is nearly impossible. Go under and it's no deterrent, go over and you're just bankrupting everybody and putting innocent people out of work.
The better solutions are the ones that repair the damage (or prevent it). Don't allow large companies to buy their competitors, or leverage a strong position in one market into a strong position in another, or enter into price fixing agreements etc. This is all basic antitrust stuff and the problem isn't that it doesn't work, it's that it isn't being enforced.
I agree the lapse in antitrust in the last 20 years has not helped the problem of corporate crime.
To address the offsetting compensation, perhaps harsher penalties. Some level of punishment exceeds the economic value of the crime, maybe that where it needs to be aimed? I agree calibration is hard. We’re currently at zero. I bet the number should be higher.
It's 'hard to tell' because we don't know what kind of evidence there is, and how assertive supposed behavior was, let alone if they broke the law.
There is more information on Tech Crunch and it really does not look damming.
I've read about this view a few times but cannot find any relevant reference at the moment.
The EU is going to unleash tens of billions in fines at US tech companies in the coming decade, because they can't compete and now they have a large hole in their budget thanks to the Brexit [1], which can conveniently be filled with fines. It's obvious what they're going to do.
The only proper response is subtle economic war on the part of the US directed at France and Germany. And we will do exactly that. We'll use every practical lever we possess to harm their corporations in retribution. It's fair game. It's a mistake on the part of the EU, the US is radically stronger in every respect. If they're not careful, the EU will end up as an economic colony of China - perhaps appropriate given history.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-budget/eu-leaders-to-c...
"European Union leaders will clash this week over the EU’s 2021-2027 budget as Britain’s exit leaves a 75 billion euro ($81 billion) hole in the bloc’s finances just as it faces costly challenges such as becoming carbon neutral by 2050. "
The total EU budget is much less than 1% of that, and is entirely discretionary spending on long-term strategic policy goals, infrastructure, and social investment.
And having a "costly" challenge of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 is a lot more realistic than the US policy on carbon neutrality, which is "We'll get back to you on that, but probably not until the coastal flooding and economy-destroying extreme weather events becomes impossible to ignore."
One is that they can't directly control most tax rates. The EU isn't funded by direct income taxation, for instance. But they can raise funds via fines, which aren't tried in court and go directly into the EU's own budget (there's a huge conflict of interest here).
Another is that the EU's budget normally only ever goes up. It's a part of the whole plan for the EU to constantly subsume more and more from national governments. The obvious view of the EU is it has a budget so it can provide services but this isn't how the EU officials themselves see it. That's why the fight over the Brexit budget hole is so bitter. Someone unfamiliar with the EU might think, well, the EU is smaller now, so it should be just fine with a correspondingly smaller budget. But it's not that way because the size of the budget is psychological. If it shrinks it's the project going into reverse, not a mere re-allocation of service resources.
I think we keep seeing dubious fines by the EU against US tech firms and although it's unpopular, I tend to agree with adventured. A lot of these fines are enormous and backed by no real robust system of justice. A government simply decrees without trial that a tech firm must pay them a billion euros. A billion here, a few hundred million there - it starts to add up. From the EU perspective sucking gold out of tech firms is not only free money but even better, populist free money, because they can demonise these companies and claim to be fighting for the consumer. Whether they actually are or not doesn't get a close look.
This has been going on since the beginning of time. Governments take stronger action against foreign entities than domestic ones. US turned a blind eye to GM knowingly allowing over 100 people to be killed due to a known faulty part but burned VW for the pollution. EU turned a blind eye to VW polluting but burned Apple for antitrust violations. Both unions acted well within law and reason when fining the foreign entities. But this is how things go. Local lobbies are usually far stronger than foreign ones so the path of least resistance means you can easier enact justice on foreign companies.
> It's a mistake on the part of the EU, the US is radically stronger in every respect.
It's stronger because it has allies like the EU. There's the distinct risk that every ally that the US alienates invariably turns to the East. And it's not like anyone (US included, not counting armchair warriors) wants any kind of open conflict (military or economic), this shoots everyone in the foot. Sometimes even when on the winning side people may be less prepared for the hardships of such conflict than the ones on the losing side.
Do you doubt the illegality of the process? Seems to me that american are trying to ignore the laws, similar with the case of the person that killed a person in a driving accident and then flees from UK, it is a giant fuck you small countries, our army is bigger so your laws are insignificant--- don't forget the new Disney laws otherwise you might regret it.
I've never seen any reasonable person look down on developers, IT-consultants, sysadmins etc, and I've lived in Europe my whole life. Yes, you'll get the occasional academic that studied the humanities and is pissed off that techies are paid more and asked to solve society's problems instead of him but that's pretty much it. Tech will almost guarantee a safe job and an income above the average. You just might hit the average income when you're starting out if you're in the right place. Who's looking down on that?
> They will continue to pursue aggressive legal tactics to stop the domination of FAANG tech products, but the real answer is legislation and action that foster growth of tech companies and start ups.
You can't create a cultural environment with legislation. Not that there's not a lot to do, but it's not that easy.
Also, I think they're very right to limit the power of US-West-Coast-Corporations. Search, Social Networks, News etc are too central to any nation to let them be provided by a foreign entity.
Sure, the difference isn't as big as it is in the US, but you don't have to be a rock star to make twice the average income with 10, 15 years experience.
If you expect to be treated as a god, being treated as a king may seem like an insult, but I think the difference to the US is mostly the European set up: you won't rise as high, you won't fall as deep. I don't see any general dislike for IT.
Should that be illegal? For a company to say "I'll sell you this wholesale stock only on the condition you only resell it for exactly $x and never less."
Is there a meaningful distinction here from supermarkets in an area colluding to sell all milk an inflated price? Or is it really the same anti-consumer, anti-competitive behavior in the end?
And I wonder to what extent it has to do with defining the price on an entire category of items (milk) vs a single company (you can always buy an Android instead).
I don't know the answer, so just curious if there's any kind of consensus conclusion here by economists.
If MegaCorp says they sell widgets wholesale for $7 and you must sell them retail for $10, everybody sells them retail for $10 and makes $3. Meanwhile BigCorp does the same thing for for the widgets they make and all the widgets retail for $10. Nobody can lower their prices except the manufacturers who are few enough to be secretly colluding, so no price competition commences.
Without this, BoxCo starts buying widgets for $7 and retailing them for $9. Which, immediately, is a lower price for the consumer. Then another shop without BoxCo's scale starts pressuring MegaCorp to give them widgets for $6.50 instead of $7 so they can compete with BoxCo's $9, which the manufacturer wants because they don't want BoxCo to have a retail monopoly on their goods. So now more retailers are selling for $9 retail to the benefit of the customer.
Then BigCorp has to lower their wholesale prices so their retailers can compete with MegaCorp retailers selling for $9, and so on.
Price fixing is enabled by fixing prices.
Or to put it another way, enforced MSRP is a conspiracy to fix prices on the part of the retailers coordinated through the manufacturer.
Why isn't the EU enacting this at the continent level? And why is the US asleep at the wheel?
Jurisdiction of commerce is where the buyer is, not the HQ location. Therefore your example is useless.
A company cannot regulate prices in France, USA or French. A French company may regulate prices in the USA if the law allows it.
The provenance of a company has nothing to do about the market regulation of the buyer country of residence.
This is not a French ideology, this is a French law that is only applicable in France territory.
I agree, it shouldn't. The question at hand is whether it does , despite this.
Any country will never let the law of a foreign country apply to commerce done on its territory. Saying otherwise is heresy.
> The provenance of a company has nothing to do about the market regulation of the buyer country of residence.
If a law is selectively enforced against foreign entities, provenance suddenly does matter. That is my only point. It undermines the spirit of free trade and invites retaliation, leaving everyone worse off.
The TC article [1] has considerably more information though still missing some fine points.
The details of the charges are not going to benefit from transparency, as it doesn't look like some kind of solid case - it seems that Apple was engaged in some otherwise normal business practices.
They required their resellers to sell at certain price points, and during times of short supply, they favoured some channels over others. This is not anti-competitive really, it's normal practice.
If the French government applied such rules fairly and broadly there are probably any number of businesses that would be found to be committing such practices.
The French have been outdone in so many areas, they're now engaged in a new form of a trade war, which is simply to grab surpluses of foreign companies as they can. And who, even among intelligent, literate people who are responsible enough to grasp material facts is going to care one bit?
It's perfectly fine if France and the EU want to be more assertive in applying their legislation, but the rules have to be clear, they have to be applied impartially and universally, not in a punitive manner.
Even better, France needs to produce exceptional companies that produce surpluses - much better to be in a situation where you have 'the great companies' and the risk is having someone DJ Trump screaming murder, as opposed to digging up dirt on otherwise well run companies in your own borders.
Also - the EU's ridiculous taxation scheme, which allows Google and FB to declare most of their profits in Ireland and skip paying taxes in France is their problem, not the problem of foreign nationals who are just following the laws. The architect of said massive loopholes is none other than outgoing EU Commission Pres. JC Junker, so the hypocrisy there is nigh.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/16/apple-fined-record-1-2b-in...
When the US fines foreign banks, VW group and others for incredibly higher amounts of money, it's fair-game but when France fines a US company after an 8 years investigation, it's not, and the authorities don't even get the benefit of doubt that maybe they know what they are doing and have a solid case? You don't have any basis to make such a statement that this is only about some revenge.
France was one of the top markets for Apple and had 20 years ago a vibrant network of small retailers dedicated to Apple hardware (without comparison with the distribution situation in the USA). That went downhill once Apple started its online store and then its physical stores. Maybe it's just survival of the fittest, or maybe Apple also tipped the balance in a way that's not ethical or maybe even not legal. That's why we have such government bodies as "Autorité de la Concurrence".
> it seems that Apple was engaged in some otherwise normal business practices.
The "Autorité de la Concurrence" probably has the best grasp compared to anyone on HN regarding what is "normal business practices" and what the law allows in France, which is not the USA.
From TC article, the accusations are rather quite specific:
=======================
The competition commissioner noted that Apple and its partners violated three specific areas:
— Apple and the two wholesalers agreed not to compete with each other and also to prevent other distributors to compete on price, “thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products.”
— Secondly, premium distributors were forced to keep prices high to keep them at the same level as those of integrated distributors.
— Third, Apple has “abused the economic dependence” of these premium distributors, by subjecting them to unfair and unfavorable commercial conditions compared to its network of integrated distributors. (These last two points relate specifically to the accusations eBizcuss had lodged against the company.)
=======================
It was a known fact at the time (10 years back or so) that independent Apple retailers were not getting stock from Apple for certain products and therefore couldn't meet demand from their customers. There were even some "hot" products that could only be bought from apple.com or its own physical stores. I don't know if some of these practices were illegal or not (that's why we have government bodies to act as arbiters and enforcers of the rules), but it certainly didn't help the retailers.
There's some more details in https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2020/03/16/concurren....
Who said this is 'fair game'?
>>>>> "France was one of the top markets for Apple and had 20 years ago a vibrant network "
A) '20 years ago' Apple was a completely different company, they were 1/20th the size. They are a completely different company, in every way.
B) 'France was one of the top markets'? Apple sales in France have dramatically increased during this time - so I don't understand this point.
C) Apple can distribute generally how they please as long as they're not breaking the law.
>>>> "The "Autorité de la Concurrence" probably has the best grasp compared to anyone on HN regarding what is "normal business practices"
So your argument is 'trust the authority of the French government because their logic is infallible' - while in the very same comment expressing that the US is engaged in 'arbitrary fining of foreign banks'?
No, we should not trust them at all, we should demand transparency.
>>>> As far as the specific points of law:
1) "Agreeing not to compete with one another". Really? Or is it that Apple required them to sell at specific prices - which is a very common practice.
If you are Apple, why would you engage in price collusion, which is illegal everywhere, when you can dictate end prices? You can 'force' the wholesalers 'not to compete' - this happens in every industry, all the time, and it's not illegal.
2) "premium distributors were forced to keep prices high"
This is not generally illegal and it's common practice!
3) "Apple has “abused the economic dependence” " - this is merely a claim, there's no substance behind it.
>>>>>>>>>>> "It was a known fact at the time that independent Apple retailers were not getting stock from Apple for certain products"
Having an amazingly hot product that is selling out everywhere is not illegal, and favoring some channels over others is not either.
But all of this is missing the point:
- Governments, US or French, applying regulatory law is important, obviously, it's important that actions are applied broadly, judiciously and with merit.
Swiss banks have been hiding tax cheaters, so it's pretty reasonable that the US would go after them. As far as other Trump-era fines, well it depends, obviously, he's engaged in some nasty stuff, but it doesn't justify the other way around.
- France is using their political and legal apparatuses as a means to grab revenue. Their economy is weak, they see this 'big American firns' making tons of cash, and they want some money. This is partly the motivation and its sad.
- There's a number of laws they could change that would more fairly derive revenue derived from Apple, FB, Google, for example, local taxes on ads, and of course, fixing the massive EU tax loopholes. This would be more consistent with 'good governance'.
- All of this is the loser's strategy. What they need is their own champions, which should be the primary focus. This will entail a whole set of reforms, and the willing effort and participation of the public at large as well.
The first Anti-Trust law (state level) happened because Butchers faced unfair competition from centralized slaughter houses (the innovation they were fighting was refrigerated train transport).
You can go threw most of these laws and see that they were advocated and often financed by those industries that were being crushed by better performing competition.
The progressive would use Anti-Trust far all manner of political reasons. Sometimes cases where two merging companies didn't even capture 20% of the market, but it was opposed by well connected friends of the Progressive Party.
Standard Oil, now the bullet prove argument that Anti-Trust is good, actually delivered falling prices and higher quality to consumers threw-out its existence. They were opposed by politically connected oil producers and rail companies who wanted to keep prices high. Under modern Anti-Trust law they could not be fined, and common sense would suggest the same.
France is a great example of using Anti-Trust to benefit French firms and oppose non-French competition. Arbitrary enforcement is a key tool for them, the rules are vague enough that many could be found behaving anti-competitively but few are fined.
Anti-Trust is not what stands between capitalism and what Marx falsely believed about the 'inherent centralization of capital' but the waste majority of the time its a political power tool yielded by bureaucrats and politicians to protect their friends.