Sunday 28 October 2007

Microsoft caves in to European commission

Microsoft goes agreed with a fine off 497 million euro after 3 year.

Microsoft received the fine after the European commission had discovered that Microsoft accepted swingeing price cuts for interoperability information that would enable rival servers to work smoothly with its Windows operating system.

In the past three years Microsoft received a total of 777.5 million euro plus interest of fines.

Microsoft now hopes that Ms Kroes will not levy further fines for its failure to comply with the 2004 ruling from December 2005 until today. Last week it said in an SEC filing in New York that it was potentially liable to penalties of $1.6bn up to the end of June alone.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, said that she hopes that the nine year during battle against the European commission and Microsoft can become to an end and that they can go on in an absolutely close and constructive way.

Agreements that Microsoft strikes with rival developers will be enforceable in London's high court, seen as the premier European court for handling high-profile IPR and international contract cases.

The commission, meanwhile, extended its deadline for its inquiry into Google's $1.5bn purchase of internet advertising broker DoubleClick.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm happy that microsoft get this punishment, it shows that also big company's aren't above the low