Spy Movie

Chapter 208 Antitrust

The CIA retreated, and SHIELD moved very quickly. Coupled with the entry of follow-up reinforcements, the wreckage of the Stan base, the remains of the giant Iron Bully, and the captured scientific researchers were quickly packed away. Tony Stark was also taken care of.

On the whole, this matter was finally resolved satisfactorily.

Of course, this is for Zhang Xin and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Afterwards, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. also agreed with Zhang Xin to stay at Iron Man's house for two days, but the condition was that he could not leave Hill's sight.

From the way back, until he went home to receive further medical treatment, Tony can be said to have a black face all the way.

It's no wonder, after all, after working so hard for so long, he really didn't get anything, except for the injuries all over his body, and he offended the CIA for no reason.

But he obviously underestimated the consequences of offending the CIA.

It's not that his injuries haven't healed yet, a court summons flew into Tony's ward as if it had spread its wings, and flung it on his face.

At the same time, Pepper and a man in a suit flew in.

"Hi honey, you finally came to see me..."

Little Pepper looked at him angrily, and said, "Look at the things in your hands first..."

Seeing Pepper's appearance, Tony realized that things were not simple, and immediately picked up the piece of paper.

His eyebrows immediately frowned: "Stark's alleged unfair competition case... What's going on here?"

Little Pepper took a deep breath and said, "You should know better than me. Have you forgotten what you have done?"

"Is it the CIA?!"

"I don't know, but there are rumors that the CIA and the Ministry of Defense have signs of meddling... Jack, please explain the situation..."

Tony looked at the man named Jack with some displeasure: "What does he do?"

Little Pepper rolled his eyes: "He is our company's consultant lawyer."

"Aha, how could I not know our company's consultant lawyer, I was just joking... Hello, Jack..."

"Hello, Mr. Tony."

The two shook hands, and then Tony said: "I understand that they want to trouble us, but when did our company become suspected of monopoly?"

Jack said succinctly: "The federal court believes that Stark's unfair competition is mainly involved in two aspects, namely price discrimination and tie-in contracts..."

"Who is suing me?"

"Interim government of Iraq!"

"Oh, Falk, isn't this a joke? Then how did Stark Industries engage in price discrimination and tie-in contracts?"

"The interim government of Iraq believes that the price of weapons and equipment sold to them by Stark Industries is at least [-]% lower than that sold to Iran. This move is suspected of dealing with low-end weapons at low prices and robbing Iraqi wealth... "

Tony stood up directly: "Isn't this nonsense? Are they not happy when we sell weapons to them cheaply? Forget it, it's the CIA who is playing tricks anyway... What about the tie-in contract?"

"During last year's arms purchase case, Stark Industries forced the Iraqi government to temporarily purchase [-] tons of fertilizer..."

Tony jumped up angrily, then clutched his stomach and let out a muffled grunt. He gritted his teeth and said, "I saw that Iraq had just suffered a war and they were pitiful, so I deliberately sold the weapons at a low price. By the way, I sold them at a low price." Give them some new type of fertilizer, what kind of unfair competition am I doing? I'm obviously going to do good things, these goddamn ungrateful bastards."

Jack maintained his original posture, and said in a personable manner: "Strictly speaking, doing good deeds is also a kind of unfair competition, so if Mr. Tony wants to defend himself, it is best not to say so."

Antitrust law is arguably one of the greatest laws in American history.

It was born on the background that American companies competed wildly, and finally merged into a large company. They controlled coal mines, oil, electricity, water and other vital livelihood resources, set prices freely, plundered the wealth of the people, and even threatened the country in turn.

At that time, the electricity price in some states in the United States reached hundreds of dollars or even thousands of dollars per kilowatt-hour, which made the ZF department unable to even use electricity, and the annual fiscal revenue was simply not enough to pay the electricity bill.

And once such a large enterprise is formed, the government will have nothing to do with them.

The people are also living in dire straits.

So the anti-monopoly law appeared. First of all, resources related to people's livelihood such as coal mines, oil, electricity, and water cannot be controlled by one company.

The specific standard is that the pricing of your products must be unified, and you cannot engage in regional price reduction policies, because such unfair pricing will obviously kill competitors, and the ultimate destination is monopoly, and the result of monopoly is to do whatever you want.

Later, with the passage of time, the anti-monopoly law has been constantly revised.

Then more standards appeared, among which the tie-in contract is also a very important one.

To give a well-known example, in the Microsoft antitrust case, an important reason why Microsoft lost the case in Peninsula at that time was that a playback software was bundled in their system.

According to general thinking, the bundled sales of software is actually nothing, because I sold a system and gave away a player software, free of charge, which is a great thing.

But this is not true in the logic of anti-monopoly, because Microsoft is in a monopoly position in the system, and if he bundles a player in the system, it will obviously damage other manufacturers of this type.

When these manufacturers are dead, or half dead, Microsoft can annex each other through acquisitions, mergers and acquisitions, etc., expand its monopoly circle, and grab a lot of profits accordingly.

The United States has been able to maintain internal stability for so many years without major turmoil. This law has contributed a lot.

On the one hand, as long as there is a monopoly company, I will dismantle it and split it into two companies, or even three companies.

On the other hand, once there are some signs of monopoly, such as price discrimination, tie-in contracts, etc., the relevant departments will take decisive action to crack down.

Of course this is a positive effect.

The negative impact is that since this weapon is so easy to use, it will inevitably hurt innocent people.

Even in many cases, this law has become a means for many people in power in the United States to suppress competitors, and even the entire country of the United States to suppress international competitors.

Although Tony Stark behaved very aggrieved, but from the perspective of anti-monopoly, selling weapons to Iraq at low prices and bundling fertilizers is a monopoly operation. After all, Stark Industries is the largest in the United States. arms suppliers.

But if he is really guilty, the Ministry of National Defense will bear most of the crime. After all, the Ministry of National Defense is involved in the sale of weapons, but of course the Ministry of National Defense is not involved in the sale of fertilizers.

Although no one in the United States cares about the interests of the Iraqi government.

Tony looked at Jack and said, "Jack, can we win this case?"

"Yes!" Jack gave an affirmative answer: "Yes, yes, but this is probably just the beginning...

Mr. Tony, aren't you going to reconcile with the people behind the scenes? "

Tony frowned and stared, his face full of grievances.

Thousands of words merged into one sentence, why? !

(End of this chapter)