James Delahunty
2 Apr 2014 12:09
Regulations in France that would require Netflix to invest in French content and abide by a quota of French content in its service can be avoided by serving from Luxembourg.
France has some cultural protection measures on its books and has previously clashed with U.S. firms, such as Google, and managed to squeeze money out of them for local content production and so forth. Netflix is not interested in bowing to the French government, but it can still reach French users.
According to a report in the WSJ's MarketWatch, Netflix will serve the French market from its headquarters in Luxembourg. Like a lot of other firms, Netflix has a Luxembourg presence for "tax purposes" anyway.
A report in the Les Echos newspaper cited unidentified officials at the French culture ministry in reporting the streaming service's plan to get around the country's regulations.
via: MarketWatch