The Hits Keep Coming
The BBC reports: EU fines Microsoft record $1.4bn
The European Commission has fined US computer giant Microsoft for defying sanctions imposed on it for anti-competitive behaviour.
Microsoft must now pay a record 899m euros ($1.4bn; £680.9m) after it failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that it abused its position.
The ruling said that Microsoft was guilty of not providing key code to rival software makers.
EU regulators said the firm was the first to break an EU anti-trust ruling.
The fines come on top of earlier fines of 280m euros imposed in July 2006, and of 497m euros in March 2004.
“Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.
The Europeans aren’t kidding, and the way the dollar is tanking, they might want to pay it quickly. The real question is whether Microsoft will take a hint, but I doubt it.
These are the kind of fines that actually get corporations’ attention, maybe the US government…nah, never happen.
2 comments
Hah! Of course M$ won’t care. Hopefully, however, the idiot consumers of the World will take notice and look for options. That won’t happen either of course. 🙂 Doing the smart thing is always too hard.
Well, the EU might do something useful with the money from the fine – probably not, but they might.