Chillin'Competition

After Pablo’s post from last week it’s time to comment on something that is actually related to the law…

Today the European Commission imposed a record-breaking € 2.93 billion cartel fine on truck manufacturers.

That’s what you call a heavy load.

And this means that truck manufacturers have just overtaken Microsoft as the main historical contributors to the EU budget. [For a previous post outlining some absurd ideas on what the Commission could do with the almost 2 billion in fines paid by Microsoft, see here ] 😉

Whereas sky-rocketing fines are headline-grabbing and may contribute to future deterrance (not that they have provided so useful in the past), I have traditionally not been a fan, as suggested by my post on The massacre of the innocents. 

That post, by the way, referred to an article we wrote back in 2008 and which is available here Fine Arts in Brussels (text) [as you will see,  the arguments in this article are accompanied by Roman numerals; those numbers refer to paintings which graphically illustrate those ideas, you can see those here: Fine Arts In Brussels (pictures)].