Microsoft to face penalty in EU

[mmadhankumar]

European Union anti-trust regulators are set to hit Microsoft with a hefty fine for breaking a promise to offer consumers using its Windows system a choice of rival internet browsers, people familiar with the case said.

EU anti-trust chief Joaquin Almunia is expected to use the fine - which could run into hundreds of millions of euros - to set an example after the software giant became the first company to break a promise made to end an anti-trust probe.

Almunia will announce his decision at 6:30 a.m. ET, the sources said. Reuters reported last week that EU regulators would fine Microsoft before the end of March.

EU rules mean the company could be penalized $7.4 billion or 10 per cent of its fiscal 2012 revenues although regulators are not expected to levy such a high fine.

The fines relate to an anti-trust battle in Europe more than a decade ago. In order to avoid a penalty then, Microsoft promised to offer European consumers a choice of rival browsers.

EU anti-trust regulators said this did not happen for a period during February 2011 and July 2012, a lapse Microsoft blamed on a technical error. It has said it since tightened internal procedures to avoid a repeat.

The European Commission has already fined Microsoft 1.6 billion euros ($2.1 billion) to date for not providing data at fair prices to rivals and for tying its media player to its operating system.

The latest lapse did not escape the notice of Microsoft's board, which cut the bonus of chief executive Steve Ballmer last year, partly because of the Windows division's failure to provide a browser choice screen as required by the European Commission, according to an annual proxy filing.

Both the European Commission and Microsoft declined to comment.

Microsoft's share of the European browser market has roughly halved since 2008 to 24 per cent in January, below the 35 per cent held by Google's Chrome and Mozilla's 29 per cent share, according to Web traffic analysis company StatCounter.


Microsoft to face penalty in EU - The Times of India

 

[M.J.Sadiq]

Microsoft fined 561 million euros for breaking EU antitrust promise

EU antitrust regulators fined Microsoft 561 million euros ($731 million) on Wednesday for breaking a promise to offer European consumers a choice of web browser.

Microsoft had made the pledge in 2009 in settling an antitrust investigation in Europe, where the software group's regulatory troubles date from the last decade and have cost it a total of 2.16 billion euros, including the latest fine.

Microsoft promised to offer European consumers a choice of rival browsers in the previous version of its Windows operating system. But the European Commission, which acts as competition regulator across the 27-member European Union, said it found the company broke that undertaking between May 2011 and July 2012.

The Commission said it takes such settlement commitments very seriously. "Legally binding commitments reached in antitrust decisions play a very important role in our enforcement policy because they allow for rapid solutions to competition problems," Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.

"Of course, such decisions require strict compliance. A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly," he said.

Microsoft fined 561 million euros for breaking EU antitrust promise - Sci/Tech - DNA