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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.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The verdict was handed down in 2004. It's the appeal where Microsoft managed to reduce the fine by about 30 Mio €.
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.
The ______ Agenda
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.
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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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.