From a post I made at Slate's "The Fray":

[libertango]

Subject: GE/Honeywell and the Eurocrats
From: Hal O'Brien
Date: Jul 5 2001 4:24 PM

Look, just like when the EU started making noise about the Boeing/McDonell-Douglas merger, what Jack Welch should do with the Europeans is painfully clear: Pull out. Completely.

GE/Honeywell should announce that they greatly regret that regulatory decisions force the newly merged entity to not do business in Europe -- and then close the doors on every factory, every subsidiary, every office, and cut off every European based or owned customer, not just from new sales but from spare parts and maintenance. Pull all corporate assets from all European banks, and foreclose all loans made by GE Capital to European individuals, companies, and government entities.

Problems? "Hey, it's not our fault... Talk to Brussels. So sorry, they say we can't do business with you" -- in everything from state-owned airlines with their engines to nuclear reactors to desktop electric clocks.

Right now. Today. Everywhere on the continent. Time on target.

How many hours do you think it would take for the EU to back down? Directly from pressures from their own heads-of-state? Would it even take one 24-hour cycle?

Comments

[redbird]

I don't think the corps are ready to declare war on the nation-state yet. At this point, the EU might have the guts to say "Fine, abandoned property," assure the workers that their paychecks will continue, and take over the patents of the company that says it won't do business in Europe. Foreclosure would be iffy at best, for two reasons: one is that the contract between lender and borrower probably doesn't allow for that as long as the borrower is up to date, and the other is that, well, where/how would they do it? They can't sue in an EU court without undercutting their position, and nobody else has jurisdiction, if the loan and asset are in Europe.