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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.
Not sure about that. Since 2004 they sold at least a billion pricey products ; that makes a pretty juicy ROI.
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The verdict was handed down in 2004. It's the appeal where Microsoft managed to reduce the fine by about 30 Mio €.
Wow, that is a chunk of change - the EU could really use the money right now too (conspiracy ???). This could pay for the bailouts being debated right now throughout the EU.
The fine is 860 million euros. The Spanish banks are getting up to 100 billion euros. The Irish got some 60 billion euros, Greece has gotten several hundred billions so far. These 860 million euros are chump change in comparison.
And when the legal proceeding complete in about 2026, once Microsoft have successfully used Secure Boot to destroy all potential competition in the desktop space and profited by many tens of billions of euros, they can get another billion-euro fine for it.
Yeah, how horrible of a European court to exact a fine in European currency. This is almost on par with Iran allowing trading oil in other currencies than US dollars!
How does that work when the Euro is currently worth 25% more than the US Dollar?
Microsoft has to report that they're unhappy with the result. They have to whine and complain. If they didn't, it wouldn't be seen as sufficient punishment.
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Microsoft's competitors and consumers aren't too happy with the result either. I'm sure they would have preferred that MS not have engaged in such practices in the first place.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
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.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Rubbish.
Microsoft has been a predatory ruthless monopolist in all jurisdictions they trade in.
If it wasn't for lobbying/bribes, they'd have been prosecuted in just about every country in the world.
Europe acting on anti-trust type of actions on big companies. I remember a time when the U.S. did that and we had decades of prosperity. Ah the good old prosperous days of the 50's and 60's with 90% top tax rate.
The thing is that the EU courts do nothing domestically, but boy, when they see a US company, it is no holds barred
Bullshit. The largest antitrust fine to date: €992M, on a cartel of lift makers within the EU. The difference is that the myopic US press doesn't bother covering anything other than fines on US companies, so you don't hear about them.
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60% is the all-time high for EUR/USD. Chart here. 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.
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: €1.06B, was on Intel, for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market.
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
Apple are the worst offenders and is the most anti-competitive company in the industry, they're worse than Microsoft.
Totally!!
Well, except for the fact that they have nothing approaching a monopoly in any industry in which they operate and consumers have the easy choice to go with alternatives should they dislike Apple's offerings whereas Microsoft had ~95% of the desktop market at the time the anti-trust cases occurred (and still have ~90% of the market).
Other than that, you're right - totally worse than Microsoft. ...
UEFI isn't a Microsoft technology, but feel free to try and prove that an open consortium has a monopoly and abused it somehow.
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.