Microsoft Asks Appeals Court in Europe to Delay Punishment
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Microsoft warned a European appeals court that software developers and consumers would face dire consequences should it be penalized.
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European Court rejects Microsoft's appeal in historic case. Court sides with European Commission on three significant areas.
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WASHINGTON - Six states, including Massachusetts, sought a five-year extension of an antitrust court decree imposed on Microsoft Corp. , arguing that continued judicial supervision is needed to prevent the world's largest software company from crushing challenges to its Windows operating system monopoly.
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US software giant Microsoft is to launch its legal appeal Thursday against a stinging EU anti-trust ruling, six months after it was fined nearly half a billion euros for abusing its market dominance.
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LUXEMBOURG Sept. 30, 2004 - Microsoft Corp. told a European Union court judge Thursday that it would suffer irreparable harm if forced to reveal more of its software code to rivals, while the EU said such
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A decision on whether to suspend the European Commission&#39;s anticompetition sanctions against Microsoft Corp. pending appeal is expected to come in the first half of next week, according to a source close to the company.
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Lawyers speak Microsoft today lost the majority of its appeal against the European Commission anti-trust decision. Microsoft will have to open up access to its server protocols, continue selling a version of its Windows operating system without Media Player, and pay a fine of at least â¬497m.â¦
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Microsoft said Tuesday it has appealed a July fine by the European Commission with the Court of First Instance, the European Union's second highest court. It also called the additional fine unfair, and blasted the EC for being vague.
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Microsoft will be told on Wednesday whether antitrust sanctions imposed by the European Commission in March will be suspended for several years, in a keenly-awaited decision by a senior European judge.
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(InfoWorld) - A group of state plaintiffs in the U.S. Microsoft antitrust case will ask for a five-year extension of a large portion of the 2002 judgment against the company, the group's lawyer said Tuesday. California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia -- known as the "California group" -- want an extension of most of the middleware portions of the judgment, said Stephen Houck, a lawyer for the group. Microsoft still retains a huge lead in the operating system and Web browser markets, he said. "Microsoft continues to have a stranglehold over the two products ... that nearly all consumers use," Houck said during an antitrust compliance hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. "Very little has happened in five years ... in those markets." The California group of states -- the larger of two groups of states that sued Microsoft for antitrust violations -- will ask for an extension of all the middleware portions of the antitrust judgement, except for a section that governs the royalties Microsoft can charge PC manufacturers for the Windows operating system. Most of the antitrust judgment was scheduled to expire in November. Microsoft lawyer Rick Rule said the company would need time to respond to Houck's proposal. Microsoft first heard of the plan to ask for an extension on Friday, he said, and the California group plans to file a formal extension request with the court in mid-October. Rule seemed to suggest Microsoft would fight the five-year extension. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly declined to impose a 10-year judgment in 2002, he said. "We think the picture of the computer industry is much rosier," Rule added. "We think it's clear that the decree has done its job." Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the company will respond in more detail after it has seen the extension request. "We're a bit surprised that a few states are now requestingÂ an extension of the consent decree because they indicated just last month that they're not too fond of it," Evans said. In August 2006, Microsoft already agreed to an extension of the section of the judgment requiring it to make its communications protocols available to other software vendors. Microsoft's efforts to fix technical documentation for the protocols have run into several delays. Houck on Tuesday asked Kollar-Kotelly to extend the communications protocol section of the judgment until 2012. The California group does not "have any confidence" Microsoft will continue to improve the communications protocol program without oversight, Houck said. An independent auditor's report just issued questions whether Microsoft has released all the protocols mandated in the judgment, he added. The California group's extension proposal comes afterÂ the U.S. Department of Justice and the New York group of states filed briefs last month saying the antitrust judgment has done its job. "There have been a number of developments in the competitive landscape ... that suggest that the Final Judgments are accomplishing their stated goal of fostering competitive conditions among middleware products, unimpeded by anticompetitive exclusionary obstacles erected by Microsoft," said the report from the DOJ and New York group, which includes five states. But Houck disputed that assessment on Tuesday. At the time of the judgment, a handful of PC vendors were preinstalling a competing Web browser on PCs, he said. Today, no major ones are, he said. In addition, the communications protocol program was supposed to be finished early in the judgment's life, and its delays have kept software vendors from fully using the program, Houck said. "The whole thing ... doesn't have an opportunity to work as the court intended," he said. "It's very clear that the product markets at issue in this case have not moved rapidly at all." Kollar-Kotelly said she would delay final reports on the judgment while she considers the California group's request. Microsoft and the plaintiffs were scheduled to meet with her Nov. 6 to discuss the final reports, but she will now consider the extension request on that date. Before Houck made his request, the judge said she was opposed to extending the judgment without a good reason. It was hard to predict the impact the judgment would have, she added. "The final chapter of the final judgment has not been written," Kollar-Kotelly said. The California group wants Kollar-Kotelly to extend all of section 3 of the judgment except for section 3B, dealing with manufacturer royalties. The extended provision would include: *Â A prohibition against Microsoft retaliating against PC vendors for including competing software on PCs; *Â A prohibition against Microsoft restricting PC vendors from putting competing middleware in the start menu or making them defaults; *Â A requirement that Microsoft give APIs for its middleware to PC vendors and independent software vendors.
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Microsoft begins a legal attempt to have a European Commission anti-monopoly ruling temporarily suspended ahead of trying to get it permanently overturned.
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CANNES, FRANCE -- Microsoft Corp. still hopes to settle with the European Commission over the sanctions ordered against it to correct its anticompetitive behavior, even as its appeal of the case winds its way through the legal channels, a senior company executive said Monday.
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BRUSSELS -- Microsoft has lost its bid to suspend sanctions imposed on its business practices by European regulators pending the outcome of an appeal.
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In the second day of a hearing before the European Court of First Instance, Microsoft will today argue that sanctions imposed on the software company following an antitrust ruling by the Commission should be suspended until an appeal of the antitrust
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission has again criticized Microsoft's response to a 2004 antitrust ruling, opening up the possibility of further fines for the company. In March 2004,Â the Commission fined MicrosoftÂ and ordered it to provide its competitors with information allowing them to develop workgroup server software interoperable Windows desktop operating system. It thenÂ fined the company againÂ last July for failing to provide that information on time. The Commission has sent Microsoft another statement of objections, saying it considers the interoperability information Microsoft has offered is still incomplete, said Jonathan Todd, Commission spokesman on competition issues. In addition, Microsoft is charging its competitors too much for that information: it does not justify the price tag put on it because it is not innovative, he said. Microsoft has four weeks in which to respond to the statement of objections, after which it may face further daily fines for noncompliance with the antitrust ruling. Even as Microsoft and the Commission dispute whether Microsoft is in compliance with the ruling, another court is considering whether Microsoft should have to comply at all. The European Court of First Instance, in Luxembourg, is still considering Microsoft's appeal against the Commission's March 2004 ruling that Microsoft abused its monopoly in desktop operating systems to exploit markets for workgroup server and media player software. At that time, the Commission ordered Microsoft to pay a fine of â¬497 million (then around $600 million), ship a version of Windows without media player software, and publish the server software interoperability information disputed in today's announcement. (Peter Sayer, in Paris, contributed to this report.)
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A European Court judge today pressed Microsoft to explain how it would suffer irreparable harm if it follows EU orders to share technology with competitors, but he offered no clues as to how he will rule.
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A European Union court will rule in mid-December on an appeal by US software giant Microsoft to suspend EU sanctions.