WEBVTT - EU Competition Chief Makes U.S. Companies Tremble (Audio)

0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:05.439
<v Speaker 1>Margaretta Vestaire, the European Unions Director at General for a Competition,

0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.039
<v Speaker 1>is well known in the United States for actions like

0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.039
<v Speaker 1>a ruling last year that Ireland had granted illegal tax

0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.680
<v Speaker 1>benefits to Apple, resulting in a fourteen billion dollar liability

0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.560
<v Speaker 1>for Apple. She says she's enforcing Europe's view of a

0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.040
<v Speaker 1>fair market. What we are looking at is, of course

0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:26.000
<v Speaker 1>the competition and uh, and we do want to see

0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.520
<v Speaker 1>that also the successful company is also going big, but

0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.680
<v Speaker 1>they allow for others to challenge them. But some see

0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.440
<v Speaker 1>an instinctive mistrust of big corporations on her part, and

0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:41.480
<v Speaker 1>the Staire's tenure has provoked anger from many large American companies.

0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.720
<v Speaker 1>Samath sup Supermannian as an award winning author and a

0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.600
<v Speaker 1>contributor to Bloomberg Business Week, and he has written a

0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:53.960
<v Speaker 1>profile of Vastaire for Bloomberg Business Week which is out now. Samantha,

0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.280
<v Speaker 1>thanks for being here with us. Uh. You know, she

0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.720
<v Speaker 1>seems to have a particular person active on matters of

0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:06.320
<v Speaker 1>competition in Europe. What is it that is her sort

0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:14.039
<v Speaker 1>of philosophy about how to approach questions of fair competition? Well,

0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:18.200
<v Speaker 1>I think her basic philosophy over here is that Europe

0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:22.080
<v Speaker 1>has a very fixed and definite view of what a

0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.600
<v Speaker 1>fair market is, and that view may differ from how

0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.639
<v Speaker 1>the Americans view to how the Chinese view it. Um.

0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.200
<v Speaker 1>And you know that's fine, for each market has its

0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:32.520
<v Speaker 1>own rules and its own perspective. But if you want

0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.840
<v Speaker 1>to play in Europe, you have to play by the

0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.440
<v Speaker 1>European rule book. Um. And this is uh, this is

0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.600
<v Speaker 1>this is this sort of a foundational philosophy of the

0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.920
<v Speaker 1>EU itself is that if the market is policed well

0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.840
<v Speaker 1>and sensibly a certain way, it sort of distributes the

0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.320
<v Speaker 1>widest and deepest benefits to society. So in you know,

0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.400
<v Speaker 1>from the from the point of view of the US,

0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.640
<v Speaker 1>it can often seem as if we use vision of

0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.760
<v Speaker 1>a free market is much more constricted and narrow. But

0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:02.200
<v Speaker 1>I think we have to sort of look at it

0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.320
<v Speaker 1>from within the EU itself and trying to see what

0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.800
<v Speaker 1>they're trying to achieve. You write that in late March,

0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.960
<v Speaker 1>the Office of the US Trade Representative reiterated its opinion

0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.840
<v Speaker 1>that the STAY is deviating to form far from prior

0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.320
<v Speaker 1>case law. And you quote one former Treasury official from

0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.000
<v Speaker 1>the Obama administration is saying her staff resembled a bunch

0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:28.000
<v Speaker 1>of plumbers doing electric work. Explain that is she deviating

0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:34.119
<v Speaker 1>from prior case law. Well, I mean, I don't think

0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.720
<v Speaker 1>he's deviating so much, a sort of pushing the envelope

0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.200
<v Speaker 1>a little bit. But we have to remember these are

0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.040
<v Speaker 1>these are very specific times we're living in, you know,

0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:44.399
<v Speaker 1>after two thousand eight, not only in Europe, but even

0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.160
<v Speaker 1>in the US, there's been sort of a widespread public

0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.480
<v Speaker 1>sentiment because there are too many corporations getting away with

0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.320
<v Speaker 1>too much sort of with paying two little tacks that

0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.359
<v Speaker 1>they can't say, sort of evading or eluding paying the

0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.280
<v Speaker 1>rightful amount of tax by setting up officers and attacks

0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.560
<v Speaker 1>haven about moving money around overseas. And this is a

0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.959
<v Speaker 1>sentiment that is not just prevalent in Europe but in

0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.120
<v Speaker 1>the US as well. Uh so, so the rules that

0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.360
<v Speaker 1>vest Tailor and her office are playing by. The rules

0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.400
<v Speaker 1>are already there on people, they are part of the

0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.320
<v Speaker 1>brief of the office itself, but she's certainly being sort

0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.440
<v Speaker 1>of a lot more activist in the way in which

0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:24.840
<v Speaker 1>she's enforcing them. Some months. The the way that you know,

0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.040
<v Speaker 1>it comes across to a lot of American companies, particularly

0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.600
<v Speaker 1>companies like Apple, where that have been the subject of

0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.320
<v Speaker 1>rulings by the EU that haven't been in their favor.

0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.960
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes it looks to them as though she's really and

0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.840
<v Speaker 1>she and her her colleagues in the EU are really

0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.640
<v Speaker 1>targeting big American multinational companies. Is that a fair assessment

0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.600
<v Speaker 1>of the way that she and the EU have approached

0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:52.160
<v Speaker 1>these matters? No, I don't think it is. I mean

0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.000
<v Speaker 1>we have to remember that a lot of her so

0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.120
<v Speaker 1>calls are big American cases that she's ruling on now,

0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.480
<v Speaker 1>which is Apple, last year, Google, which to be later

0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.280
<v Speaker 1>this year. All these cases were actually opened during the

0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.480
<v Speaker 1>tenure of her previous of the previous Competition commissioner. You

0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.480
<v Speaker 1>of who's from Spain. And if you look at the

0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.440
<v Speaker 1>statistics of the number of cases that she has opened

0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.200
<v Speaker 1>during her own tenure, I mean they don't They answer

0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.880
<v Speaker 1>wildly off the charts in terms of how many American

0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.360
<v Speaker 1>companies they target. Just to give you an example, her

0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.080
<v Speaker 1>predecessor opened two hundred seventy six anti trust cases during

0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.440
<v Speaker 1>his tenure, or thirty nine of them were American investors.

0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.520
<v Speaker 1>Two and a half year terms. So far, eleven out

0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:38.039
<v Speaker 1>of eighty one companies have been American in the anti

0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.080
<v Speaker 1>trust cases she's opened. So the ratios aren't sort of

0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:43.960
<v Speaker 1>you know, you know, they aren't really they don't justify

0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:48.159
<v Speaker 1>the kind of prevalent sense that she's anti American. I

0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:49.919
<v Speaker 1>think it's just the sort of the size of the

0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.680
<v Speaker 1>Apple Award, combined with the particular timing of Apple and

0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.919
<v Speaker 1>Google and Star Wucks and Amazon, all of these cases

0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.279
<v Speaker 1>coming together over the course of one or two calendar years,

0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.880
<v Speaker 1>that's making it seem as if she's she's particularly vindictive

0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.320
<v Speaker 1>towards the big American cooperation. But I don't think that's

0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:11.440
<v Speaker 1>the case. You write about her discussion of competition law

0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.719
<v Speaker 1>in the severe moral terms of a biblical patriarch. Is

0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.320
<v Speaker 1>she strict by the rules and no room for compromise?

0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.000
<v Speaker 1>I think he is. I think there's this sort of, uh,

0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.160
<v Speaker 1>it's a very black and white world that that she inhabits.

0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:28.880
<v Speaker 1>I think, I mean, she used to be a politician

0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.159
<v Speaker 1>in Denmark, and you know the nature of being a

0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.320
<v Speaker 1>politician itself is you sort of compromise here and there,

0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.279
<v Speaker 1>you make deals. You don't automatically get sort of the

0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.880
<v Speaker 1>ideal vision of the world that you want. And a

0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.919
<v Speaker 1>lot of people who have met in Copenhagen said that

0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.280
<v Speaker 1>she's really come into the office that she can best inhabit,

0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.760
<v Speaker 1>the office of the of the competition commissioner, something where

0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.679
<v Speaker 1>you're handed a playbook or rule book and you literally

0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:53.760
<v Speaker 1>just you you could sit in a tower and make

0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.360
<v Speaker 1>these decisions based on what's given to you on paper.

0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.839
<v Speaker 1>There's no sort of there's not much room for negotiation,

0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.960
<v Speaker 1>don't have to cut deals. It's really sort of cut

0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.280
<v Speaker 1>and dried, and it's something that she's she has temperamentally

0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.000
<v Speaker 1>been suited to almost all her career. Well, speaking of

0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.320
<v Speaker 1>her career, well, how is it that she ended up

0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:17.440
<v Speaker 1>in this position. I mean, she was a very she

0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.840
<v Speaker 1>was sort of a young tyro in Danish politics. M

0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.040
<v Speaker 1>she joined in when she was twenty. She joined her

0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.560
<v Speaker 1>party in first ran for the Danish Parliament. She lost

0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.200
<v Speaker 1>that particular race, but she's been working with her party

0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.840
<v Speaker 1>ever since she was twenty years old. It's a party

0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:36.240
<v Speaker 1>that has a particular kind of fondness for policy wonkery.

0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.520
<v Speaker 1>I guess you could call it. Uh. They are sort

0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.000
<v Speaker 1>of an essentially pragmatic party where they do what's best

0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.080
<v Speaker 1>for the people are regardless of which part of the

0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:49.080
<v Speaker 1>ideological spectrum of solution comes from. So she rose quite fast.

0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.320
<v Speaker 1>And I think in sort of the mid two thousand's

0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.719
<v Speaker 1>she became known very quickly, uh for sort of taking

0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.000
<v Speaker 1>tough decisions, for taking decisions that she believed to be right,

0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.400
<v Speaker 1>even if it earned her a men it of fun,

0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.400
<v Speaker 1>popularity over top colleagues, over the people, and uh. And

0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.840
<v Speaker 1>she was part of a coalition government and she did

0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:09.680
<v Speaker 1>quite well over there. She was a Minister of the

0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.720
<v Speaker 1>economy and she as a minister of the economy, she

0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.720
<v Speaker 1>was working a lot within the intra u circuit of

0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.440
<v Speaker 1>economic and finance ministers. So I think when it came

0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.760
<v Speaker 1>time for Denmark to appoint somebody uh to the new

0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:27.480
<v Speaker 1>you commissionered it, they chose Westo Well. Our thanks to

0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.640
<v Speaker 1>Samantha Supermanian for joining us today to talk about his

0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:36.160
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Business Week article on Margaret Margaretta Vestaire excuse me,

0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.200
<v Speaker 1>the European Union Director at General for Competition. A lot

0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:42.640
<v Speaker 1>of companies around the world, not just in America, Google,

0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.000
<v Speaker 1>gaz prom, Apple, Fiat, Amazon, Starbucks, are going to be

0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:50.080
<v Speaker 1>affected by her actions in the upcoming couple of years.

0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:52.760
<v Speaker 1>That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We'll be

0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.920
<v Speaker 1>back tomorrow. Thanks to our technical director Christoper Come and

0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.800
<v Speaker 1>our producer David Suckerman. You can find more legal news

0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.560
<v Speaker 1>at Bloomberg Law dot I'm in Bloomberg b NA dot com,

0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.480
<v Speaker 1>plus an invaluable website for the legal community at Big

0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.800
<v Speaker 1>Law Business dot com. Coming up on Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg

0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.720
<v Speaker 1>Markets with Carol Masster and Corey Johnson. Carol, you're in Boston.

0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.840
<v Speaker 1>What are you gonna talk about? We are Michael Best,

0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.080
<v Speaker 1>Mass Robotics in Boston, and we've got the CEO of DraftKings,

0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.960
<v Speaker 1>the CEO a Trip Advisor, and the Patriots owner, Bob Kraft.

0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.040
<v Speaker 1>And a very happy birthday to you, Michael Best. Well,

0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:23.640
<v Speaker 1>thank you very much. I didn't think we were going

0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.640
<v Speaker 1>to talk about that today. That's our last topic on

0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.400
<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Law. Stay tuned for Bloomberg Markets and all of

0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.480
<v Speaker 1>that and more here on Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg