The European Commission has punished American software giant Microsoft and has ordered the company to pay a staggering amount of 899 million euros, that is about $1.35 billion on Wednesday this week. The fine was imposed as the company did not follow the sanctions imposed on it for the antitrust breach and the latest fine for the company goes far beyond the original fine imposed on Microsoft. The executive body of the European Union, the European Commission has now penalized Microsoft to the tune of 1.68 million euros for the company’s original breach as well as for not observing the sanctions. The fine by the EU for Microsoft is greater than any other company ever had to bear.

The European Commission has also added that Microsoft was the only company that overlooked the sanctions and every other firm complied with the sanctions. Neelie Kroes, the competition commissioner said in a statement that in the fifty years of the EU competition policy Microsoft was the only company which the European Commission had to penalize for not complying with the antitrust judgment. A statement issued by Microsoft said that the fines ordered by the commission were in relation to past issues and it now looks to the future.

In a 2004 milestone judgment, which was also sustained by the EU court last year, the European Commission had said that Microsoft had denied the required information about interoperability to its rival manufacturer of the work group server software. The work group server software runs printers and sign-on for the small office groups and it must work together with the desktop Windows machine. The commission came to know that Microsoft withheld the important interoperability codes to competitors because of which the market shares of the firms shrunk in value whereas the product of Microsoft gained in the market. Microsoft was told to share the information and it also promised to share the information but put in place great royalties citing innovation.

The commission instead came to know that the information Microsoft was withholding did not have any great innovation and it was more of a lock to the combination for which the company was not sharing. The commission also ruled that that the royalties Microsoft wanted were quite disproportionate. Neelie Kroes, the competition commissioner hoped that this ruling of the EU will close the gloomy phase in Microsoft’s history of nonconformity with the European Commission’s judgment of March 2004.

Microsoft has had a record of penalties by the EU, and in 2004 Microsoft was fined e497 million and it again was fined in 2006 for not complying with sanctions to the tune of e280.5 million. And the fresh fine for Microsoft relates to the fine which was imposed in 2006 and the fine is for the period extending from June 21, 2006 until October 21, 2007 following which the company promised to cut down the royalties and share the vital information. In the last week when Microsoft felt that there is going to be the possibility of a huge fine, it came with a public promise that it would publish the vital information so that competitor programs work with windows.

Tags: European Union News //