The only way this would work is if the European operation were truly independent & separately owned, no corporate control from the US. But I don't think that's what AWS is proposing.
IANAL/etc, but the subsidiary and the parent are different people (legal personhood). The US parent is only responsible for the EU subsidiary’s actions under US law to the extent it has effective control of them. If the parent tells the subsidiary to obey a US legal order, and the management of the subsidiary refuses on the grounds of EU law - then the management of the parent has done what US law requires them to do. The US management might consider firing the EU management and replacing them with new managers - but if the job requirement is “must be willing to break local law”, nobody with an appropriate background is going to apply, so if they fire them they won’t be able to replace them, hence they are legally justified in not firing them.
It is normally true that a wholly-owned subsidiary just does whatever the parent’s executive management demands, but this is one of the rare cases where that generalisation breaks down. (If we consider non-wholly-owned subsidiaries, it becomes a much more common thing.)
Eventually they found someone who would do what they were told without quitting, that is how this works.
The parent company is ultimately at greater risk than the subsidiary-the parent can be deprived of ownership of its subsidiary, there is no equivalent consequence for the subsidiary.
I’m not really sure the point of your comment, actually. Are you asserting that no one would ever tell someone to do anything illegal because someone else might get in trouble for it?
Because if so, you might want to read the news?
why would they do that? they'd put a US manager there temporarily
and the EU has no leverage to do anything about it
if they did they wouldn't have selected AWS "Sovereign" cloud in the first place
Absolutely they do have leverage – maximum they could possibly do would be confiscate Amazon's EU assets (physical, financial, corporate and intellectual)
so they can turn off their own critical services?
threatening to shoot yourself in the foot with a tactical nuke is not leverage
That would require humans to do additional – and very likely criminal – acts of retaliation.
And no one will care about whatever claims of ‘criminal retaliation’ there are, because it’s already crossed that line eh?
It’s not like the domestic employees will be doing it anyway - or would need to be involved.
This is located within the EU. They can walk in and arrest the US manager or deport them immediately, and throw any direct reports in jail if they obey the US manager.
The EU has all the leverage here. Sovereignty over a geographical area does actually mean something.
how? they'd be in the US (hence "US manager")
> The EU has all the leverage here.
it has one threat: to shut it all down, at which point the EU re-enters the dark ages
threatening to blow off your own leg is not leverage
For those with nothing they particularly care about, it will be enough. For those with something to lose - currently small, but increasing, see the 80’s and the French Industrial espionage scandal - they’ll move back to on-prem if they haven’t already.
You don't need any “appropriate background” if you are going to be a one time tool to enforce an action.
And given the previous managers know that they have no power to stop the move anyway (because their replacement will comply) I doubt many would be willing to sacrifice their position just to keep the moral high ground.
No, that's the whole point of this setup. Amazon will not be violating US law when its European subsidiary says no, we won't respond to your subpoena. It would be if Amazon USA owned the European data centers directly and employed American workers. But it will do neither. The US courts can't compel companies to do things they have no legal authority over. It doesn't matter that Amazon owns the subsidiary -- fundamentally, the subsidiary is a foreign entity.
This is an arrangement which enormously benefits Europe because it's quite similar.