Summary: Familiar faces and sympathetic countries offer protection to a monopoly abuser

IRELAND is well known as Microsoft's centre of tax dodge in Europe. The exchange is one of little or no benefit to the Irish economy (which not so long ago stood on its last leg), it's about rich people trying to evade tax using loopholes and tax havens.

In a fascinating Cablegate cable, pro-software patents dunce Charlie McCreevy is being addressed indirectly. This is different from Austria's position:

VZCZCXRO7108
RR RUEHAG
DE RUEHDL #0335 0891457
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 301457Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY DUBLIN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6705
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
C O N F I D E N T I A L DUBLIN 000335 




SIPDIS 




SIPDIS 




E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/31/2015 
TAGS: ETRD, KIPR, EUN, EI 
SUBJECT: IRELAND SHARES USG CONCERNS ON MICROSOFT 




REF: A. STATE 46956 




     B. YOUNG-SOILA E-MAIL OF 3/13/06 




Classified By: Political-Economic Counselor Mary E. Daly; Reasons 1.4 ( 
B) and (D). 




(C) Ireland shares USG concerns about the Commission's 
treatment of Microsoft (which has its European operations 
center and large-scale R&D programs in Ireland), according to 
Ronald Long, Assistant Secretary General in the Department of 
Enterprise, Trade, and Employment (DETE), with whom Post 
discussed reftel demarche on March 28 and 29.  Long, who has 
responsibility for competition issues in DETE and claims to 
have written the 1991 EU Copyright Directive for Computer 
Programs, noted that DETE Minister Micheal Martin had 
recently written to EU Internal Market Commissioner (and 
former Irish Finance Minister) Charlie McCreevy to alert the 
Commission to the GOI's concerns.  Long elaborated that the 
GOI saw the Commission as less than transparent in its 
evaluation of the interoperability information supplied by 
Microsoft in compliance with the Commission's antitrust 
ruling.  The GOI, he added, worried that the Commission's 
dealings with Microsoft were making the ground rules for 
competition cases unclear, a trend that should concern any 
company operating in Europe.  He asked to stay in touch with 
Post as the Microsoft case proceeded. 
KENNY 

Got to love the part about "less than transparent" in relation to the EU Commission. Lack of transparency is actually the Microsoft problem which the EU Commission was trying to address. What is this, projection? ⬆