Microsoft fined another $357M
p2p news / p2pnet: European regulators have landed Microsoft with 280.5 million euros ($357 million) fine for antitrust violations on top of the 497 million-euro fine already levied by competition commissioner Mario Monti.
Microsoft hasn’t complied with a 2004 order to license information to rivals on how Windows communicates over a network, says Bloomberg News, going on that the regulator threatened to double daily fines against the company if it continues to resist the ruling.
Microsoft says it’ll appeal.
Monti also ordered Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without a video and music player and Bil and the Boyz are appealing the ruling to the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, says Bloomberg News, continuing:
“Rather than await the court’s ruling, the commission has decided to use brute bureaucratic force to implement its decision and to punish what it sees as recalcitrance by Microsoft,” Ronald Cass, a former adviser to Microsoft, said in an e-mailed statement.
Today’s fine, “the first by the commission for failure to comply with an antitrust order, was 1.5 million euros a day, levied between Dec. 15 and June 20,” says the story, adding:
“That’s less than 2 million euros in daily fines that the commission threatened in December. The EU said it would fine Microsoft an additional 3 million euros a day if the company continues not to comply with the ruling.”
A venuet.com story quotes European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes as declaring, “I regret that, more than two years after the decision, and despite an order from the President of the Court of First Instance that the Microsoft appeal to the Court does not suspend Microsoft’s obligation to comply, Microsoft has still not put an end to its illegal conduct.
“No company is above the law, and any business operating in the EU must obey EU law.”
Also See:
Bloomberg News – Microsoft Fined EU280.5 Million in EU Antitrust Case, July 12, 2006
venuet.com – EC slaps €280m fine on Microsoft, July 12, 2006
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July 12th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
they’ll appeal every decision landed against them… the EU will be lucky to collect a dime by 2015
July 12th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
“No company is above the law”
That is in Europe, perhaps.
In the good old USA that is not so.
We sued Sony in 1971 for making records with our songs without a license from us and without paying us any royalties. At the time we though we were talking about 3 records. No we know 24 (or more) illegal records were being made. The records can still be purchase in the USA on the web, so distribution continues. Is that not being over the law.
Large companies are simply stupid first in violating the law and then arrogant when facing the law.
Information about the case is here:
Venegas v. Sony Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
http://rafa_venegas.web.prdigital.com/venegas_v_sony_lawsuit.htm
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com