European Commission: Microsoft violated antitrust

By David Worthington

January 16, 2009 —

It is the slow wheels of justice for Microsoft's competitors, and water torture for Microsoft. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition believes the company has been in violation of European competition law since 1996.

The violations began when Microsoft first bundled Internet Explorer into Windows. The EC informed Microsoft of its position in a Statement of Objections, which the company received yesterday in a letter.

The EU's Statement of Objections resolves that the remedies put in place by Microsoft's 2002 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice were not adequate enough to make the inclusion of the browser in Windows legal under European law.

The Statement of Objections is a preliminary finding and does not spell out any penalties or action to be taken at this time.

In response, Microsoft released a statement saying that it was studying the Statement of Objections and that it is committed to being in full compliance with European law. The company also stated that it is afforded the opportunity to respond in writing as well as to a hearing after its response is submitted.

"Under EU procedure, the European Commission will not make a final determination until after it receives and assesses Microsoft’s response and conducts the hearing, should Microsoft request one," the company stated.

In February 2007, the EC levied a US$1.3 billion fine against Microsoft for failing to comply with the spirit of its 2004 antitrust ruling against the company by charging software developers "unreasonable prices" for access to documentation on Windows client and server protocols, which Microsoft was mandated to provide for competitors.

Microsoft has since made that information and additional interoperability information about its other major product accessible to anyone who requests it.

Those sanctions stemmed from the EU’s 2004 antitrust ruling against the company, which was upheld in September 2007 by the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, the EU’s second-highest court. The EC determined that Microsoft abused its dominant market position as set forth in Article 82 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.

In 2004, Microsoft was initially fined €497 million ($613 million), followed by an additional €280.5 million ($357 million) in July 2006. The cumulative fines have amounted to approximately $2.3 billion.

Related Search Term(s): finances, Internet Explorer, Windows, European Commission, Microsoft

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Comments

01/17/2009 05:08:06 PM EST

Your description misinterprets the facts of the previous case. The fine related to factual non-compliance with a ruling of the European competition authorities, not non-compliance with the "spirit". Microsoft played every trick that was possible and finally lost in court. One riddiculous trick was to claim "intellectual property", meaning trade secrets in the interface documentation. The generous attitude of the Commission was just abused by Microsoft. I would hope that this time the Commission will be tougher to enforce the rules of our European market. Microsoft still has to learn that Europeans make the rules and it is not upon a company from the US to criticize them when it is convicted. If us companies don't understand the ABC of competition law and think by going political (success in the US) you could solve things they are plain wrong. It rather makes the public more angry and more demanding.

BelgiumAndy

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