“Samsung Electronics Co. has doubled mobile-phone sales in the U.S. since 2008. As the company faces anti-dumping measures and a protracted court battle with Apple Inc., its U.S. lobbying bill is growing even faster,” Terje Langeland reports for Bloomberg.
“Samsung boosted spending on lobbyists to $900,000 last year from $150,000 in 2011 as it tries to influence the federal government on issues ranging from intellectual-property infringement to telecommunications infrastructure, regulatory filings show,” Langeland reports. “The company also hired Sony Corp. veteran Joel Wiginton to run a new government-relations office in Washington… ‘Samsung is being sued left and right,’ said R. Polk Wagner, a professor of intellectual-property law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. ‘A major component of their business is smartphones, and this is becoming a very litigious area.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, instead of lobbying, maybe Samsung should just stop stealing other companies’ intellectual property?
Langeland reports, “In August, Apple won the verdict against Samsung from a federal court in San Jose, California… Last year’s court ruling in San Jose may prove to have the same effect on Samsung as tariff threats did for Toyota, according to Amir Anvarzadeh, a manager for Asia equity sales at BGC Partners Inc. in Singapore. Samsung was ‘very close to being banned,’ Anvarzadeh said. ‘That was a wake-up call that, ‘Hey, we need to expand our presence, particularly in Washington, and get some lobbying power.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Why stop copying when you can just up the lobbying?
What a despicable outfit. We’ll never buy a Samsung-branded product of any kind.
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Crimes Pays. Especially if you can buy congressmen
Not “if”, but “since with few million dollars”.
Samsung likes to pay taxes in the US. They just prefer to pay them directly to the politicians.
Samsung, like Andy Inhatko, is Dead to me.
Why do you think he got a Samsung and not the “pure Android experience” Nexus, which would make much more sense in light of what he’s writing.
Maybe just me, but I think Samsung isn’t just paying congressmen and UK judges…
Sung of Sam needs to be shot.
Wonder how much Marco Ribio got from the gravy train
Looks like Samsung is just trying to pay/ buy their way out of trouble. Trying to control government officials with money like do back home in Korea.
In every country around the world, these kind of lobbying should be named corruption – bribes. Samsung only use what should be banned since long ago.
Only if you have the money, people with power and authority will listen at you. If you don’t have the money, your are nothing, you should disappear from that country. This society don’t love you.
Ban, boycott. A true Ferengi, Samsung is cheat and steal their way in for profit.
I like Google in the search and gmail worlds. But it’s playing a smart evil with Samsung in the mobile space. Google is to be blamed too. If not Eric was sitting in Apple board all those time when Steve Jobs trusted him with the development of iPhone, I believe Andriod phones won’t be as “good” (their UX sucks for sure tho). People like Eric, is a pro in confusing most of us about an inspired product with a stolen product. Steve Jobs paid visits to PARC for very limited exposure to Lisa, and he picked up the idea while going thru all the design and engineering process with Woz to create a great Mac of the time, Eric sat in the board grabbing the nitty gritty of iPhone for as long as he can like Microsoft taking all those years learning to copy Mac until finally releasing Win 95… Uh. Can’t write anymore. Feel sad for us who become more and more dishonest.
boycott Andy Inhatko
Gee. Really? Samsung is being accused of dumping products on the market below fair market value? Honestly, what exactly do people think Samsung’s $20 billion marketing budget was spent on?
They bought marketshare.
Boycott Samsung consumer products.
Apple lobbying 2012 : 2’000’000$ (After reducing lobbying budget)= The good guy
Samsung lobbying 2012 : 900’000$ = The bad who buys congressmen
Don’t you mix things a bit up?
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/18/apple-reduced-federal-lobbying-to-2m-in-2012
Feel free to downvote (Curious to see if my post will even hit the board)
Akin, Gump, et al lobbying firm received $760,000 from Samsung in 2012; Akin, Gump had 20 individual lobbyists working on Samsung-related issues with congress. That’s a big chunk of that $900k.