Apple, Google Lose EU Court Decisions

The Apple tax case. We start with that. In 2016, the European Commission made this finding. It assessed a $13 billion penalty, which was basically what it said were unpaid taxes because the Irish Tax Authority had given these favourable opinions to Apple that essentially amounted to improper state aid. Now, what was interesting is that the intermediate court in 2020 did reverse that decision and said the commission didn't follow certain guidelines in setting that fine. But when we looked at the briefing going into this this final hearing, it did seem like this was going to be the result. So I think this $13 billion verdict against Apple wasn't entirely surprising. And this money has been held in escrow for a number of years. So I think people sort of saw this this coming this way. So, I mean, is this just another, I guess, hurdle that Apple and other big tech companies have to deal with from a regulatory standpoint just all over the world here? Yeah, I mean, the hurdles are certainly stacking up. But I think what's interesting about this, as I look at these two decisions is really some from some of the last for Apple's from really regulatory actions that began kind of nearly a decade ago. And I think now we've certainly moved on and both and especially in Europe but also in the U.S., there are increasing hurdles there that the companies are having to face. I mean, especially if you look at Google, you know, it's sort of locked up in another trial this week with the DOJ over competition concerns. So these these these challenges really are mounting up around the globe. So put it all together. So I guess that's a great point. What's on the docket court wise for big tech in Europe? And then what's on the docket big tech wise in the U.S.? And do you have like a spreadsheet that sort of outlines everything? I honestly can't keep track and also, like, what the money is associated with all of it. Yeah. Yeah, we've got quite a few spreadsheets. I do have one where I track all the ones that are in Europe. And if you look at Europe, what I say that we've moved on from now is because after these these regulations or sorry, these litigations were started five, six, seven years ago, what the European Commission did is they went back and they rewrote some rules where they said, we're going to make it easier to really go after some of these anti-competitive practices that we're seeing. And that's why we have the Digital Markets Act. That's why we now have the Digital Services Act. And we already see under the DMA that there are some probes facing both Apple and Google, Google for sort of similar practices that were at issue here where it was alleged to have abused its dominant position in search to elevate its own products over the products of peers. It's already facing investigation for that. Apple is facing two DMA probes, both related to the App Store. And I think these ongoing have growing more of an operational risk because they really could go to how these companies are currently operating, not just sort of this backwards looking financial penalty B thing that we we saw today. I mean, if you look at the U.S., of course, I think the biggest thing facing Google right now is this DOJ lawsuit that is going to trial this week based on it ad stack. So I think that could have some really profound ramifications for the company, not just in terms of financial penalty, but really behavioral remedies, which is, I think, moving forward, what could be the most frightening thing for a lot of these companies talent? Is the UK view of big tech different than the EU. And the reason I ask is now that obviously the UK is out of the EU, do they look at tech any differently than the European Union? Maybe there's some slight variations where they maybe trend slightly more toward the U.S., although I say that, but the U.S. now is really fairly aggressive in their stance on big tech. But the UK doesn't really quite have the competition rules. But they also are saying that we're going to re-evaluate how some of these rules are going to be applied against these big tech firms. So I think it's it's difficult to find any real safe haven in terms of a regulatory standpoint for these big tech companies, whether it's EU, UK or even increasingly the US. How do you handicap all of this within, say, valuations or how you model the stock? I honestly think a lot of investors have a little bit of regulation fatigue when it comes to this. This is by no means a new story, especially if you look at how the EU has been going after these dominant firms for over a decade now. And I can't say when you look at them, you can see really a loosening of their grip on the markets here. So I do think in many ways investors are sort of shrugging off these actions. And I think, you know, especially when you look at the increasing trials that we're having, we actually could see some huge sort of landmark litigations coming out. So it's definitely something to keep an eye on, even though we've been seeing it for for years and years and years.