[8bithero]

Sorry if this is a silly question: The article states that if the companies fail to comply then they can be issued with fines worth 6% of the company’s annual revenue. What would happen in the even where one of the companies just said "Nope. We're not paying it."? In that case I assume the offending company would be dragged into lengthy and expensive legal battles against the EU. But is it likely that the EU could or would also block access to the services offered by these companies?

[Closi]

> In that case I assume the offending company would be dragged into lengthy and expensive legal battles against the EU. But is it likely that the EU could or would also block access to the services offered by these companies?

If they didn't pay then eventually the government would probably seize assets to cover the debt, and they would face increasingly more severe legal action until they paid.

It shouldn't really an option to just ignore the law.

[anonyfox]

Yes it is. So far every offender ultimately complied, so there was no need to go the last mile in reality.

But I guess having suddenly zero access to one of the worlds biggest markets (europe) would make wall street a bit nervous about the companies‘ revenue targets. Not to mention customers immediately jumping to some competitors, which might hurt a bit in the long run.

[dist-epoch]

You can make it illegal to do business with FB in EU (sanction it basically). You can seize whatever assets (buildings) or bank accounts they might have here.

[blitzar]

You stick the CEO in jail.

[brainwad]

The CEO of Meta, who lives in the US? Good luck with that.

[gambiting]

He regularly visits EU for both business and for fun - sure would suck for him to never be able to set a foot in any EU country ever again.

[blitzar]

Extradition treaties exist.

Or just go the US route and do an extraordinary rendition. They don't seem to have a problem with that.

[josephcsible]

Doesn't the double criminality rule combined with the First Amendment prevent extradition for things like this?

[r00fus]

No need for that; EU can essentially poison EU markets for FB (sanctions/fines/blocks). Most shareholders will act accordingly and tank the stock. Even if Mark can ignore because he holds most of the voting interest, this directly impacts all vested workers, so becomes an HR nightmare.

[blitzar]

Why not do both? It would be so much fun - Facebook execs too scared to got to fly the jet to Europe for fear of being cuffed when they land.

The reality is facebook would happily pay the fine and the real loser would be the US taxman - in response the US would drum up some more "fines" against some European companies as payback. All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

[majkinetor]

Why would you? Companies exist for a very reason to separate legal from private entity. CEO is not a company.

[blitzar]

#FreeElizabethHolmes

I was acting in my capacity as CEO when I killed that person. It is The Company that is responsible, not me.

[f1shy]

You can only do that if he is doing something listed in the penal law, not the commercial law.

[littlestymaar]

Given that this is related to terrorism[1] I'm pretty sure a creative government could find a way to attempt penal prosecution here if they really wanted though (After the terror attacks in France in 2015-2016, French law made “terrorism apologism” a crime for instance, which is a scary law tbh, especially when we've seen how it was applied).

[1] I personally don't like to talk about the Hama's massacre as “terrorism”, as an organized military crossing a border to systematically eradicate civilian population is much more than terrorism: it is genocidal in essence.

[jobs_throwaway]

Good luck!