Comment by akerl_
4 years ago
I assumed it was pretty clear why it wouldn’t do them any good:
All of their executives and their staff are in Sweden. It doesn’t matter if the company is registered on Mars, the Swedish government can come knock on their doors, because Swedish laws apply to people in Sweden.
The most mundane way to demonstrate this is to imagine they don’t register a company at all. If a bunch of Swedish people get together and start doing business w/o registering a company, it’s clear that Swedish law applies to them. Why would filing some paperwork with a foreign entity grant them immunity from the laws in the country they live and work from?
A server in Sweden cannot easily be raided by the Swedish, is the first reason.
The second reason is "Swedish laws apply to people in Sweden" seem to make assumptions about what the government can force people to do, or specifically, punish people for not doing. In many cases, authorities just threaten/raid the data-centers so never have to bother take that route.
Lastly, I'm not sure this is true: "Swedish laws apply to people in Sweden" - I'm not sure this applies to Swedes working for foreign corps, there are a whole load of laws that apply to local corps only. In fact, that are laws that apply to Swedish corps even when their staff reside abroad - unless "government can come knock on their doors" is a reference to physical coercion.
This isn’t really responsive to what I’m saying or what you asked me.
I didn’t make any assumptions about what Swedish law can or cannot do. Swedish laws apply to people in Sweden. If Swedish law says that you can’t use Helvetica font on your website, and the punishment is 10 years of hand-tracing a better font on stone tablets, then they’re able to apply that law to a Sweden-based web developer, regardless of whether or not he works for a company that’s registered in Spain.
Likewise, yes, the Swedish government surely has many laws with carve outs for different use cases. Taxes are a great example here: there are laws that apply only to activities of foreign corporations, and laws that apply only to local corporations. But the Swedish government gets to make those laws and determine which apply to whom. Likewise, you are correct that Sweden can make laws that apply to Swedish corporations even when their staff reside abroad. This is because by registering in Sweden, the business has given the Swedish government a measure of control over their activities.
> I didn’t make any assumptions about what Swedish law can or cannot do
> If Swedish law says ... they’re able to apply that law ...
This is a big assumption, and depends if you mean literally that they can do this, or if they can do so sustainably. Any country can violate international practise, but are unlikely to do so (at least in Europe) because of the consequence on international relations.
A law on Helvetica font would require legal authority. Very often, companies themselves are help liable for the actions of a company - laws that allow the government to punish individuals would have to specifically criminalise the act even for locals acting on behalf of those corps. These kind of laws are much rarer, at least in US/Europe, and not the kind of law we are talking about here which appear to apply to corporations. There is a good reason for this; as soon as any nation officially declares it would punish individuals like this, corps will leave - or at least no longer employ natives into decent positions.
> But the Swedish government gets to make those laws and determine which apply to whom.
Technically, but not really, they have to remain compatible with their international agreements, and their economic ambitions.
Laws that apply to companies follow different rules than laws that apply to individuals, it feels like you’re conflating the two..
Just because employees reside in Sweden doesn’t mean the company resides in Sweden, legally.
2 replies →
> It doesn’t matter if the company is registered on Mars, the Swedish government can come knock on their doors, because Swedish laws apply to people in Sweden.
But it does matter. In most EU countries limited-liability companies (like the Swedish Aktiebolag) are legal entities that are completely separate from their owners and employees. Your idea of Swedish authorities "knocking" on people's doors (who own a company registered abroad) and "convincing" them to hand over customer data appears to be more along to lines of https://xkcd.com/538/ but in this case (in the particular case of a country like Sweden that has a well-respected legal system) it doesn't seem to be grounded in reality.
For instance, Swedish law likely compells companies to hand over customer data under certain circumstances. But if you're the "just" the owner of that (limited-liability) company, the company's customers are not your customers, so authorities cannot compell you to give them access to those customers' data (because you are a separate legal entity).