The risk of major companies!

Hussein Shobokshi MAJOR companies, which are considered more important than governments, remain in the eyes of many observers and analysts. The companies concerned are large multinational corporations. Governments “know” and are well aware of the danger these companies pose to them and they try to keep them “under control,” sometimes by prosecution, sometimes with new laws and at times by tax implications. Recently what the European Union did against the giant company “Apple,” based in Ireland in the European continent, was to punish them with a fine of more than 14 billion euros because of “evasion” of payment of taxes; a decision considered by most economists as arbitrary and unjust. Also there is another similar decision against the e-commerce giant “Amazon” based in Luxembourg, again, in the European continent. We have seen in the recent past the tough resolutions issued by the US government against the two car companies “Volkswagen” and “Toyota” which they believe threaten the leadership of “General Motors,” one of America’s top auto companies, and its car market around the world. The resolutions had a huge financial costs for Volkswagen and Toyota, as well as it was a tremendous cost of reputation and credibility since it affected both the companies globally. We have also seen domination of the government of China against “Google”. China completely banned its products such as email known as “Gmail” and “YouTube”. In the United States, there was the well-known case of the Chinese electronics and telecommunication giant “Huawei” (and other Chinese companies), not a commercial company but entity of a commercial nature, owned by the Chinese army and the intelligence services. The United States prevented those companies from bidding in any government projects in the United States citing it to be a threat to its national security. In Europe, the European Union prohibits major Chinese enterprises to engage in the competitions of governmental organizations under the pretext of inadequate specifications. Today there are wars, not necessarily cold, but it is hot wars between large firms and states because the big companies have become one of the most important arms of the “states” and it has great adverse impact because it is able to gain universal acceptance of popular products and services provided by more than all the policies they issue. This is a new form of wars and conflicts. As the oil companies in the last century had major role to play in the world’s economy, today, the new multinational companies now have the same role to play. Welcome the new companies to the new century!