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Microsoft's Price Fixing Penalty, 9M Euros
freakxx writes "Microsoft has been slapped with a fine of 9 million Euros by German regulators over illegally fixing the price of its Office-suite in an anti-competitive manner during a retail-promotion fair. Microsoft has accepted the fine and decided not to take this issue to any higher level."
This is not the manufacturer and retailer agreeing to a price between them. This is the manufacturer dictating to the retailer what price the RETAILER gets to charge its own customers.
Once the manufacturer has sold a product they should no longer have any control of it. Should the car dealer you bought from be able to dictate the price you charge when you resell it later on? Should the home builder be able to dictate what price a susequent owner sells for? I for one think not. Once the product is sold the prior owner should have no control over the new owners dealing with that product.
Yes. But eurodollar is actually a concept that exists in banking and predates the euro. They are dollars held in banks outside of the United States. They were instrumental to the establishment of the dollar as the world reserve currency. But with such similar terms it is not hard to see that people become confused.
Wrong. It is *not* the legal costs.
Legal fees are regulated in Germany. For a 9 Mill Euro court fight, assuming they use in-house lawyers for their defense, the standard costs (2 "full fees") to get a judgement are just Euro 20912.
Seems MS just sees no chance to win...