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Deadline Looming for Microsoft in Antitrust Case

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-up dept.

gaijincory writes "The International Herald Tribune reminds us that the end of the month is Microsoft's deadline to comply with the European Commission's antitrust ruling. The fine for non-compliance? A cool $5 million per day."

8 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. And at that rate... by T(V)oney · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... they would have a few months to figure out what they wanted to do about it.

    1. Re:And at that rate... by should_be_linear · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not really. If regulation bodies in EU recognize that MS is happy with 5M/day, commision will be glad to increase it. Don't forget that majority in EU parliament and commision are leftist parties (socialists, greens). It would be political suicide for them to be fooled by mother of all evil (in their mind): Giant American Corporation.

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      839*929
    2. Re:And at that rate... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ignoring stockholder issues that others have mentioned, here's how the fine breaks down:
      MS reported $2,560,000,000 profit last quarter. Spread over 90 days that's $28,444,444.44 profit per day. That means that $5,000,000 per day is about 17.6% of their profit. If the EU provides less than 17.6% of MS's market then it'll be actively costing them money to remain operating in Europe.

      The question then is how much money is it worth to retain worldwide dominance? If they loose Europe, it's a massive crack in their market since the multinational companies will have to be interoperable with non-MS software. MS does have a strong incentive to comply here, AFAICS.

  2. what is to stop the EU by Dance_Dance_Karnov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    from increasing the fine if MS doesn't comply and just pays it out?

  3. Re:wtf by Kinky+Bass+Junk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    (From The Seattle Times) "It amounts to about $3,000 per hour for one lawyer, more than $2,000 an hour each for 34 other attorneys and $1,000 an hour for administrative work."

    Yes, i know that's an old article, but it would more than likely be similar. When worked out as a 8hr day (9-5), i got $65,400 - not quite $5 million a day.

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    Anonymous Coward
  4. Re:Bill Will Fill by zerbot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I dunno. Bill Gates has contested fines and taxes that were levied on him personally. Once he got ticketed for failure to stop at a stop sign, he didn't have proper proof of insurance on him, got cited for that too, and later showed that he did have insurance, just didn't have the card with him. He asked for mitigation of the fine even though it was a piddling amount of money for him.

    Then when he had his house built, he contested the assessment on it because he said that the high cost was largely due to the number of change orders involved in the construction, and did not accurately reflect the true market value of the house. Again, the property taxes were piddly compared to his income.

  5. Re:Why exactly.. by Tune · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > In short, the better solution would be to have the most popular media players
    > all available in a default install - IE, install Windows, and it gives you a
    > menu of which player you want installed. Same with Linux.

    Hmm OK. If that's exactly what Microsoft would have done from the start -- include only the most popular players in a default install -- everyone would still be using Netscape and RealPlayer.

    Afterall, those were the most popular applications before microsoft started pushing them out of the market. At the time, IE & MediaPlayer were hardly better, so they would only have gained a marginal momentum if they'd had to compete on equal terms.

    So yes, your suggestion sounds great, and yes, it would have made Windows a much weaker product (from a marketing perspective).

  6. The power of the competition minister is not fines by dyfet · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The EU competition ministry can impose multiple fines, however, I do not think they can ever exceed 5% individually, or 10% collectivily, of world-wide revenues in the effected products. And of course, they can be subject to delay, and reduction to perhaps meaningless levels on appeal. Some have also suggested that as this is less than the unusual profit margins in the monopoly products, and so even that may have no direct impact on Microsoft's behavior (Microsoft could simply raise prices for example).

    However, the treaty of Rome and subsequent enabling treaties which empower the EU compeitition ministry to do this also gives them one other important power which they have so far not used; the right to set aside and void contracts. This was originally intended to set asside member state and commercial contracts which were created under unfair bids, but I don't recall seeing anything in the treaty language nessisarly limiting it's action in this regard other than past uses. What if the EU competition ministry really grew a set, and choose instead to try and void the Microsoft EULA within the European Union as an instrument of unfair bargaining by an illegal monopoly? It may just actually have the authority to do this. Certainly it does have the clear authority, which it has used before, to explicitly cancel existing government and private contracts, though would normally do so individually rather than wholesale. Certainly if they even tried to do this, whether attacking large individual contracts, or, wholesale liberation of their consumers, it would be a much more effective action against Microsoft's monoply business practices than any piddly fine...