EU Officials Unanimously Support New Antitrust Fines for Microsoft By ADAM COHEN Wall Street Journal
July 4, 2006 6:27 a.m. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115200289914197449.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news BRUSSELS -- Officials from the 25 European Union states Monday voted unanimously to support the European Commission's plan to levy further fines against Microsoft Corp. in their long-running antitrust case, people familiar with the matter said. The Brussels-based commission wants to fine the global software company up to 2 million ($2.6 million) a day for failing to comply with its 2004 antitrust orders. The national authorities and the commission will meet again early next week to determine the period the fines will cover and the total penalty, the people said. Microsoft said it is working hard to comply with the commission's order to make its Windows server software work more smoothly with rivals' software products. The company has complained that it didn't have clear instructions from commission regulators or the trustee overseeing its case until earlier this year. A commission official familiar with Monday's meeting said anything but a unanimous decision would have been unusual because the commission has been in close contact with national authorities. Following next week's meeting and further consultation with other European commissioners, Neelie Kroes, the commissioner for anti-trust issues, will make a final decision on the penalty in the Microsoft case. In March 2004, the EU fined Microsoft 497 million euros for using the Windows operating system to block competition in related software markets. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list medianews@twiar.org To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
