EU Court Upholds Microsoft Antitrust Fines

a_n_d_e_r_s writes "The ongoing saga of Microsoft's misuse of their dominant position in the EU marketplace to block competitors may be finally over, with the fine set to 860 million euros (just over 1 billion dollars). In 2004 Microsoft was ordered to provide certain information to competitors but failed to do so and was given an hefty fine. Now the EU General Court in Luxembourg has upheld the EU Commission decision and ruled against Microsoft." This is a minor reduction (4.3%) of the original fine because of a minor technicality. Microsoft, naturally, is unhappy with the result.

Re:Microsoft is proving EU with a bailout

[Sique]

The verdict was handed down in 2004. It's the appeal where Microsoft managed to reduce the fine by about 30 Mio €.

Re:EU bailout

[Barefoot Monkey]

How does that work when the Euro is currently worth 25% more than the US Dollar?

Re:EU bailout

[dunkelfalke]

Not really. Germany had not much say back then about the EU. France pressed Germany to let everybody and their dog in as a condition for the reunification.

Re:EU bailout

[Anonymous Coward]

Try looking at ongoing cartel and anti-trust cases inthe Commission's official case database [europa.eu].
Of course, DSD, Europay, Scandlines Sverige, Ã-sterreichische Banken and similar companies are all as genuinely American as one can be.

Re:EU bailout

[buddyglass]

60% is the all-time high for EUR/USD. Chart here [yahoo.com]. The euro is currently worth about as much relative to the dollar as it was in 2004, which is more than at any time prior to 2004.

Re:EU bailout

[wjsteele]

The largest antitrust fine to date [nabarro.com]: €992M, on a cartel of lift makers within the EU.

Bullshit. The largest antitrust fine to date [nytimes.com]: €1.06B, was on Intel, for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market.

They got away with it in the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

They were charged guilty by the highest court in the US... and nothing.

Microsoft just complained that it was hard to comply and dragged their feet. The US did nothing. No fine, no nothing, until it reached stature of limitation. Then Microsoft, a convicted criminal, got off the hook without even a slap on the wrist.

In that aspect, The EU was much smarter. They gave Microsoft time to fix their stuff, and when that time expired, without Microsoft doing anything, they started fining 1 000 000 euro for every additional day of non-compliance. That is where the 980 000 000 euro fine is coming from.

Microsoft is not the only case like this.