Gates tried to Blackmail Danish Government

mocm writes "The Inquirer has a story about how Bill Gates tried to pressure the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen into accepting the European Union's proposed directive on software patents by threating to terminate the 800 jobs at Navision, which had been acquired by Microsoft." Update: 02/16 00:41 GMT by T : cfelde points out a CNET story which says that "The European vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions, Klaus Holse Andersen, denied on Tuesday that the jobs at Navision were ever at risk." Believe who you'd like.

Not blackmail

[loudmax]

That would be extortion, not blackmail.

Here's another article...

[MadMoses]

...from heise.de [heise.de] (in German).

SOP

[fermion]

this has become standard, at least in the US. Corporations play one state against the other to gain tax breaks, increase dole payments, and other entitlements. These welfare subsidies can net a several hundred dollars of government payments per anticipated position.

Also covered by Groklaw

[John_Sauter]

Note that this story is also being covered by Groklaw [groklaw.net], with some good commentary by Pamela Jones.
John Sauter ([e-mail])

Blackmail or Extortion

[kenthorvath]

Is there a difference between blackmail and extortion?

According to dictionary.com, blackmail is defined as the extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.

Whereas extortion is defined as the Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.

Is it not extortion that has occured here?

Re:Blackmail or Extortion

[will_die]

It is neither.
It is definatly not blackmail, since there is no criminal act or discreditable information.
It is not extortion because the act of close the office and firing the people would not be illegal. Also it was not made in private.
It is definatly arm twisting or making a threating comment. Not sure how illegal that would be.

Rough Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

A rough translation of the original Danish article is also available. [groklaw.net]

Re:Not blackmail

[phasm42]

You left out the rest of the sentence: [blockquote]2 a : extortion or coercion by threats especially of public exposure or criminal prosecution b : the payment that is extorted[/blockquote] Blackmail is a particular kind of extortion.

Yes, they do link to the original article

[Anonymous Coward]

And yes, they actually do quote the original article. PJ runs such a tight ship. I sometimes forget, being a denizen of /.

Re:I don't know

[MadMoses]

Not really. He didn't say something like "If you vote against software patents, we will terminate those jobs." He said something along the lines of we're extremely unhappy that there are no software patents in Europe. We can't "secure our rights" properly here, so we just might have to relocate that company to the USA.

Political FUD.

Incase it gets /.'ed

[neferaza]

NO SOFTWARE PATENTS, NO NAVISION IN DENMARK SAYS MICROSOFT

According to danish newspaper Børsen [1] and the Copenhagen Post [2], Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft is threatening the danish government to move jobs from Denmark to the United States should Denmark continue to oppose the software patent directive.

Although the political players in the European Commission, spearheaded by Commisionner Charly McCreevy, continue to assure the proposed directive would not allow US-style patents on business methods and software to creep in the european patent system, the big companies in the IT sector seem to know better.

FFII, one of the key players in the opposition of the directive, sees its analysis verified by Microsoft and is asking when the council and commission will decide to tell the truth about the planned directive.

They urge the Commission and the Council to accept what democracy wants. Several national parliaments and the european parliament have come to the conclusion that the current proposal is not acceptable. On thursday the european parliament will decide to aks the commission to throw away the beleagured proposal and return to the drawing board.

"We are not opposing a directive, we want a good directive and the current proposal is simply not good", says Hartmut Pilch, founder and president of FFII. "We have seen that the majority of SME in europe know exactly what they would gain from the current proposal - nothing."

For these very reasons FFII has decided to call for a demonstration in Brussels. On Thursday, 17th of february they plan to show the council that they think it has become a "Banana Union". More information on

http://demo.ffii.org
Links

[1] http://www.borsen.dk/dagens-nyheder/?ids[]=70135 [2] http://www.cphpost.dk/get/85881.html
Prelaminary translation of the article

Gates threatens Fogh [dk PM] with closing Navision

The founder of the world's largest software company Bill Gates is now
ready to close Navision in Denmark and move the almost 800 developers in
Denmarks largest software company to the USA.

This was firmly stated when he met with Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen (V) [V = liberal party] in November 2004, as well as the
minister of economics and industry Bendt Bendtsen (K) [K = Conservatives]
and the minister of science Helge Sander (V).

The threat may become reality, if parts of the IT industry succeed in
blocking a controversial EU directive on software patents, that
Microsoft [more than anything in the world] wants to be approved, but
which time and again has been delayed thanks to their opponents very
efficient lobbying.

"If I'm to keep my development center in Denmark, then it's a
requirement that the question of rights becomes resolved. Otherwise, I
will move it to the USA where I can protect my rights" said Bill Gates
according to Microsoft Chief legal council[?] Marianne Wier, that also
took part in the meeting with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Bill Gates bought the Danish development department, which builds upon
the merger of the two IT companies Navision and Damgaard, for almost 12
billion DKK back in 2002.

It has not been possible to reach Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
to have him explain in detail [lit. "deepen"] how he reacted on the
harsh message from Bill Gates.

Additional information

* Navision is a ERP software provider, no research entity. It was bought for 1.4 Billion DKR, not to gain access to Navision's patents but to enter Navisions enterprise solutions market. Navision has very good ERP solutions and competes with SAP. German SAP also has very few software patents, although they are rapidly increasing their portfolio. At the ERP market there are hardly any software patents. The whole ERP market is dominated by European players.
* Where are those DK Navision software patents? See 35 granted software patents suspected from Denmark. Before Microsoft boug

Re:The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

you can contact "Statsministeriet" - the ministry where the PM resides in at : [e-mail]

link to homepage: http://www.statsministeriet.dk/Index/mainstart.asp ?o=2&n=3&s=2

Re:I don't know

[swv3752]

Meaning, he was extorting but not in way that could lead to a potential criminal charge.

Backfire!

[redelm]

... and if I and others decide to detest M$ over a hostile action, that too is our right. The separation of business and politics is a much bigger deal in the EU than in the US. Rightfully so IMHO. M$ just lost cred bigtime, especially if this is widely reported.

As for Martha, had she tried those stunts, I'm sure that the DoJ would be happy to add bribery (maybe extortion) charges and her shareholders would've sued her to powder. There is supposed to be separation between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of govt in the US. And an independant judiciary (incl prosecutors) most everywhere else.

Re:I don't know

[MadMoses]

You got it.

help us stop Microsoft extortion

[Anonymous Coward]

This company is far from any ethical standards and any proper business conduct. We can safely say that Microsoft is acting in a criminal manner besides producing mediocre software and paying their executives to spread blatant lies.

At the same time there are honest people, companies, and organizations that produce quality open source operating systems e.g. Linux.

There is simply NO excuse to use windows anymore, perhaps except for gaming. People who still use windows are retards and companies who do are not just acting irresponsibly but are guilty of supporting this criminal entity.

Re:Danish Government has Tough Decision

[KrunZ]

The little town (Vedbæk) is one of the richest (http://hjem.get2net.dk/rungsted.roklub/huse_langs _stranden2.htm) towns in Denmark. It was one of the richest before Microsoft entered (http://www.microsoft.com/danmark/jobs/vedbak.asp) , it was one of the richest before the company (http://www.sinca.com/noticia_aquiere_navision.htm l) that Microsoft bought started, and it will remain one of the richest after Microsofts leaves.

Re:You've got a lot of jobs there, Prime Minister

[Anonymous Coward]

Score -1, Missed Monty Python Reference

Suprise!

[tod_miller]

If you care to check out my other posts on the subject of EU patents, I do wonder just where Microsoft would be behind the curtains.

In the everlasting words of Bill Gates "Suprise Fuckers!".

Well, I think this is obviously a way of setting up a legal platform to kill linux (after SCO failed) by removing the last bastion of patent turf war.

We need to have out own patent office, the GNUPatent office, and get it recognised.

Re:Danish Conservatives

[Dasch]

I happen to live in Denmark, and trust me, it's not the size that's the problem. The problem is that our minister of state from the once-liberal, right-wing party "Venstre" ("Left" in English, kinda confusing actually) has allowed the Danish People's Party, a bunch of rascists with close ties to the extreme right, to dictate the immigration laws in order to get their support in other areas.

Anti-immigration is nothing but rascism. Phew!

Re:Cut off your nose....

[Frasier]

Depends on the NCO's the staff had to sign-- if the NCO allows it, then yes, the opportunity is indeed perfect.

IANADL (I am not a danish lawyer).

Typical limiting agreements that I have seen only apply when the employee leaves, not when he is fired.

Some jurisdictions even force the issue to protect the employees (at least Finland that I know of).

Backfired!

[infolib]

The danish Social Democrats just denounced Gates' threats in a press release [ffii.org]. The social democrats control whether software patents have a majority or not in the danish parliament.

yes it does belong on Gates' shoulders

[Robocoastie]

>>Stop putting all evil on Bill's shoulders. Actually it should be there. Gates, being the richest man in the world in charge of the biggest technology company in the world is in the unique position and power to influence many other sectors of the economy. This also makes him a role model. So yes the evil does rest on his shoulders just as mistakes in government are placed on the President's shoulder's even when its actually the House, Senate, Generals, or all a mix of them all really responsible. Also you're setting a strawman arguement. In this instance Gates is clearly being unethical and shows how eccentric he's getting. Bottom line his company should have been actually punished when found guilty of monopolistic practices by breaking it into pieces like Standard Oil was. But it wasn't, it just got a wrist slap showing us how corrupt our government has become because it wants his money. -- That's how powerful Gates is - he influences and bullies governments.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Scene

[displaced80]

Nope -- we have ticks :)

Tickboxes, Tickmarks are just 'ticks'.

Amongst programmers, 'checkboxes' is understood. But if I were to tell a user to put a check in that checkbox, I'd get an odd look.

Although we do have checklists, which (oddly) are usually ticked-off. Even though the person doing the ticking would announce 'Check!'. Checkpoints are indeed 'check'points, unless you're referring to those cheque-cashing (no, not caching) shops which sometimes call themselves 'Chequepoints'.

Schoolkids will get ticks on their work, not checks.

And yes -- flashlights are torches. It's 99.9% certain that the person hearing the word will understand whether or not it's of the 'flaming' variety, based on context. That other 0.1% of the time can be quite funny/dangerous/deadly. But only to D&D players who take things too far.

Re:Worst....article....ever

[Peter H.S.]

Now, I'm not saying they DIDN'T do it, it sounds like something a business would do. But this piece of "journalism" is not enough to condemn Microsoft for anything. That is by far the poorest execuse for a news article I've ever seen and nothing in it should be taken as fact.

Fair enough, but I can assure this story is the real deal. Your danish is perhaps a little rusty, but here are some links anyway:

http://www.borsen.dk/dagens-nyheder/?ids[]=70135 [borsen.dk]
http://politiken.dk/ [politiken.dk]

It is worth noting, that the source for the story, is none other than Microsofts chief lawyer in Danmark, Marianne Wier, who was present at the meeting between Bill Gates and the danish Prime Minister Anders F. Rasmussen.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Scene

[loserMcloser]

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's "You'll queer the deal."

Re:Cut off your nose....

[16K Ram Pack]

IIRC European law doesn't much like NCOs because they act as a restraint of free trade.

Update: Microsoft releases denial statement

[AFCArchvile]

As covered [theregister.co.uk] in two sources [zdnet.co.uk], Microsoft's denial:

But Klaus Holse Andersen, the European vice-president of Microsoft Business Solutions, denied on Tuesday that the jobs at Navision were ever at risk. "No, that is not what he said in the meeting," Andersen told ZDNet UK. "There is no plan for us to close down the site."

Fogh denies...

[Maskedman]

Our prime minister has officially denied that Bill Gates supposedly "threatened" him.

He is denying it!!!

[insanely_mad]

http://www.borsen.dk/dn/70178 - Det har han ikke gjort på noget møde med mig. Jeg kan slet ikke bekræfte den udlægning, slet ikke. Det har vi slet ikke været inde på. Nej, siger Anders Fogh Rasmussen til Ritzau. === That he did not do in any way with me. I can cannot confirm that assertion, not at all. THat is not something we discussed. No, says Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Ritzau.

Translation of Danish article

[ahoset]

This is a translation of the article [borsen.dk] at Børsen.

The founder of the world's largest software development company, Bill Gates, is now ready to close Navision in Denmark and move the approximately 800 developers behind Denmark's largest software success to USA.

This was made clear by the Microsoft boss when he met with prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, minister of economy and business Bendt Bendtsen, and the minister of science Helge Sander in November.

The threat may become reality if parts of the IT business succeed in blocking a disputed EU directive about software patents that means the world for Microsoft to have passed. Approval of directive has repeatedly been delayed by the opponents' effective lobbying.

"If I am to maintain my development center in Denmark, the rights question must be settled. Otherwise I will move it to USA, where I can protect my rights," Bill Gates said according to Microsoft's chief legal counsel Marianne Wier, who also took part in the meeting with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Bill Gates acquired the Danish development department that is based on the fusion of the two IT companies Navision and Damgaard for about 12 billion kroner [approx $2.1 Bn] in 2002.

It has not been possible to get prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to elaborate on how he reacted to the strong message from Bill Gates.

Not quite as big a threat in Denmark

[hung_himself]

It's not the US...

Losing your job doesn't mean risking bankruptcy if you become sick and there are very generous social programs in Denmark to ease the transition from one job to another. I'm not saying being laid off is not a big deal but it is lower on the Richter scale. So because the Danes are less dependent on corporate largesse, they can also more easily ignore this type of corporate blackmail (albeit at the cost of higher taxes for some...)

The Inq.

[di0s]

I find The Inquirer to be humorously ironic (bordering on hypocritical) since they bash Microsoft and even refer to them as "The Vole", yet they use IIS/ASP.Net. Their Linux/FOSS articles are sparse at best, which obviously means they know squat about the subject.

Wrong assessment

[Dmitri_Yuriescu]

He didn't just try, apparently he succeeded very well!

Yesterday I watched the Danish news on TV. They told the story as you know it and a little more. Before moving on to todays next topic, the speaker assured everyone that of course the Danish government will 'fight for the jobs', meaning acting Bill Gates puppets in EU.

Thuesday the 27th there will be a demonstration in Bruxelles against the law MS (and other very large companies) are putting on us.

CORRECTION (Oh dear)

[born_to_live_forever]

It took me about ten seconds after posting for a little niggling voice at the back of my mind to tell me that I'd better check my facts. The following paragraph in my preceding post is completely wrong:

The "true hero", as such, of the evacuation was not, in fact, a Dane - it was SS-Obergruppenführer Dr. Werner Best, the German administrator in charge of "cooperation" with the Danish government. When he learned of the plan to seize the Danish Jews (who had previously been left alone, to avoid antagonizing the Danes), he surreptitiously gave warning to his Danish contacts, who passed the word along. The entire evacuation operation was carried out largely without any government participation. I know it seems strange, even fantastic, to consider an SS man the "hero" of any situation - but nevertheless, such is the case.

Turns out, my memory had played a trick on me and I'd swapped a couple of names. True to the classic image of SS men, Werner Best was not a good guy. In fact, he was the individual who recommended implementing the "resolution of the Jewish problem in Denmark". Although his overall behaviour with regard to occupied Denmark was lenient, he certainly was not a good guy.

The actual hero of the day was Georg Duckwitz, of the German Embassy in Copenhagen. He was responsible for matters dealing with shipping, and he gave warning of the impending operation to Danish contacts.

*sigh*

Oh well, I suppose that mess-up sort of undermines my credibility - though I do think that I should get credit for issuing an immediate correction.

In any case, this little historical quibble has no bearing on the actual matter of Fogh Rasmussen's likely response to MS strong-arm tactics. But then again, you probably don't need me to tell you that politicians tend to cave in to pressure from big business...