First of all i don't understand all of the US laws but I just came up with an idea for Microsoft's case.
WHY DON'T THEY MOVE THE COMPANY TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY?
I think with the amount of money they make any other country would like to have them as a tax payers. Then in the US they could just keep on setting up new branches with "different" names to get around.

Well, what do you think?

PS: On the other hand I agree that what they've done wasn't fair. But the stronger wins and we could use some standards in this industry but with 100's of different companies it is hard to make standards.