Microsoft - Fined for Violations in European Union

Microsoft becomes the first company in 50 years to violate European Commission anti-trust ruling. For this honor the company must now pay a record 899m euros. This is roughly $1.4 billion American dollars. The fine stems from a 2004 ruling made which found Microsoft guilty of abusing its dominant market position. The Commission said today that this fine comes on top of earlier fines of 280m euros imposed in July 2006 and 497m euros in March 2004.

Failure to comply with the EU commissions order to release key Windows code to rival software developers is at the heart of the controversy. Although on two occasions Microsoft did attempt to have the ruling suspended (September 2004) and an appeal in the European Court of First Instance (April 2006). In September 2007, Microsoft received word they had lost the appeal.

The European Courts are not the first to gavel a blow to the software giant Microsoft, in fact, the United State of America first found the company guilty of similar anti-trade practices in which they caused smaller companies to actually falter based on similar actions. The software giant also is being pursued by Brussels and last month the European Commission announced two new anti-competition investigations against Microsoft are underway for similar issues and complaints.


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