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All the entries posted on September 17, 2007.
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Monday, September 17, 2007
EU courts rule against Microsoft again
LONDON — In a major blow to Microsoft Corp., a European appeals court on Monday upheld a lower court’s earlier findings that the company is abusing its monopoly position.
The EU Court of First Instance ruled in Luxembourg that Microsoft should be required to share interoperability information with rivals and also sell a version of its Windows operating system without its Media Player software.
The court also ruled the company should be required to pay a $613 million fine — the largest ever levied by business regulators in Europe.
The outcome, three years in the making, is likely to impact the software industry for years to come and to act as a reference point for future antitrust cases.
The ruling is the latest blow to Microsoft since European regulators — echoing findings in the United States — first ruled in 2004 that Microsoft was abusing its dominant position as the world’s biggest software company.
Microsoft appealed the original 2004 ruling, arguing that the fine should be rescinded. The company could now appeal again but the case would have to argue that the appellate court made an error in procedure when reaching its decision, and not that the facts in the case are wrong.
Read the press release announcing the ruling here and read details of the case here.
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