You may have heard that there's this leading U.S. Presidential candidate making threats to violate U.S. international economic law obligations. Yes, that one, but also this one:
Hillary Clinton signaled a willingness to hold as "leverage" the patents of American companies keeping assets overseas until they bring the income back into America to pay taxes on it.
The policy hadn't been a part of Clinton's plans to increase pressure on companies keeping assets overseas or on corporate inversions--business deals where U.S. companies merge with another foreign company and reestablish overseas to avoid paying American taxes.
But when prompted by a question from an audience member in Sioux City, Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon, she told supporters that she'd do just that ... ."We have major corporations in this country--GE, Apple, many others--that are salting money away offshore. Can't we use their patents as leverage to make them pay their taxes?" an attendee asked Clinton.
"Yes, we can and we will," Clinton responded.
The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond as to what using "patents as leverage" would entail.
Of course, she is targeting "American companies," but obviously some of these companies operate in other countries, too, so you can imagine that a trading partner might be upset about having a company's patents "leveraged" in this way, and file a complaint under TRIPS or an FTA; and there may be possible ISDS claims as well.
