• slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    There’s compelling arguments either way. On one hand, this is a pretty naked attempt to hit at China and control the flow of the US government’s desired information.

    On the other hand, the legislation isn’t technically a ban, but a forced divestment of a corporate asset. The power of the government to force the breakup, dissolution, or divestment of corporate entities is the basis of US antitrust law, and is well established.

    It’s an interesting case.

    • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The power of the government to force the breakup, dissolution, or divestment of corporate entities is the basis of US antitrust law, and is well established.

      Unless of course the monopoly holder is an american corporation. Then it’s a good monopoly. We’re living in the next gilded age simply because people “forgot” monopolies are bad and those laws remain unused against giants like google, amazon, meta and many many more.

    • Rusty Shackleford@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      I imagine that our (U.S.) government’s case resides primarily on the premise that the state may exercise the ability to force divestment of a company with foreign ownership.

      These powers are granted by the National Defense Authorization Act which seeks to prevent imminent national and private security vulnerabilities being exploited by foreign adversaries and agents; the actors here would be specifically the CCP and their intelligence and military apparatus’ shell companies and PMCs.

      The precedents set by U.S. Anti-Trust laws support their position, but the primary argument in the state’s defense are the powers granted by the NDAA.

      I’m only speculating.