Report: EU and Microsoft strike deal on antitrust case
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Three key anticompetitive issues addressed in agreement between European Commission and company, according to news report.
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Microsoft Corp.  filed revised documents with the European Commission on Thursday aimed at complying with a landmark antitrust decision from 2004, the European Commission said.
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Microsoft Corp.&#39;s settlements with long-time opponents Novell Inc. and the Computer &amp; Communications Industry Association won&#39;t end the software maker&#39;s antitrust woes in Europe.
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The Financial Times reported yesterday that Microsoft paid the Computer and Communications Industry Association $19.75 million earlier this month to settle an antitrust suit, and that the association&#39;s top official received $9.75 million of that amount.
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THE RULING: Microsoft Corp. lost an appeal at the European Union's Court of First Instance to get a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling and record 497 million euro ($613 million) fine overturned.
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The European Union&#039;s top antitrust  regulator is set to issue a formal ruling finding software  giant Microsoft Corp.  guilty of breaking EU  competition rules, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
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PARIS, Sept. 17 -- A European Union court Monday rejected Microsoft's appeal of a European antitrust order requiring it to share software information with rivals and pay a record $690 million in fines for quashing competition.
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A European Union court upheld a landmark 2004 European Commission antitrust decision against Microsoft  on Monday in a crucial victory for the European competition regulator over the U.S. software giant.
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Microsoft and the European Commission faced off in open court on Thursday for the first time in their five-year legal battle over antitrust concerns.
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A European court begins delivering its verdict in the long-running competition dispute with Microsoft.
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Microsoft signed a rare deal with an  open source software group on Thursday, taking a step towards  meeting sanctions imposed by the European Commission for  antitrust violations.
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(InfoWorld) - No one used the 'L' word, but both sides in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust battle in Europe accused each other of lying about basic facts surrounding the latest twist in the long-running saga that emerged Thursday. The European Commission sent Microsoft a so-called statement of objections Thursday accusing the software vendor of failing to provide interoperability information on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." This was a requirement laid out in the landmark 2004 antitrust ruling against the company. In its statement the Commission said the software giant proposes overcharging for vital interoperability information needed by software makers to allow their products to work properly with the Windows operating system. It dismissed almost all of the information Microsoft proposed revealing as not innovative and therefore not worth the price the company wants to charge to license it. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said Microsoft had agreed that the innovativeness of the information should be the main criterion when setting the price, but in a conference call with journalists later Thursday, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith denied his company had agreed innovativeness should be the main criterion. "We told the Commission we believe innovation is one of three main elements. We don't have the same interpretation of what had been established [between Microsoft and the Commission]," he said. Then ECIS, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, accused Microsoft of misleading journalists by citing a study by accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), which, according to the software company, shows that the prices Microsoft wants to charge for licenses to the interoperability information are 30 percent below normal market rates. "It is an outrageous comparison," said Thomas Vinje, ECIS's legal advisor and a partner in the Brussels office of law firm Clifford Chance. "The PWC study compares the prices Microsoft wants to charge with the market price for much more valuable information such as software code, documentation, and full redistribution rights," he said. "What people will get with Microsoft's interoperability information is a lot less valuable. To compare it with the sort of information in the PWC study is like comparing apples with... some withered fruit," he added. The actual prices Microsoft wants to charge for licensing out the interoperability information are too complicated to share with journalists, Microsoft spokesman Tom Brookes said. He warned inquisitive journalists that there is no simple price list. The Commission believes that if all software vendors bought licenses it would amount to around 35 percent of the net profit of the industry. Microsoft's Smith dismissed this, saying: "I don't think you can conclude that." He said that if all vendors bought the licenses the total revenue Microsoft would earn would total around US$30 million -- a tiny fraction of annual software industry profits. "That $30 million figure bears no resemblance to reality, and if Microsoft can't explain how they reached this figure it has absolutely no value," Vinje said. Microsoft has four weeks to respond toÂ the latest statement of objections, after which it faces daily fines of up to â¬3 million (US$3.9 million). In the meantime, the Commission is expected to conclude its assessment of the substance of the interoperability information Microsoft submitted. It doesn't have to be innovative. In fact Microsoft's rivals, including ECIS, argue that much of the information competitors need in order to build their software so that it interoperates with the ubiquitous Windows OS on PCs is quite straightforward. Nevertheless, if it isn't revealed then rivals are stuck, Vinje said. Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told journalists Thursday that Microsoft's continued failure to comply with the antitrust ruling is unprecedented. "In the 50 years of European antitrust policy, it's the first time we've been confronted with a company that has failed to comply with an antitrust decision," he said. "You have to look at their attitude faced with other antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions. This is a company that apparently does not like to have to conform with antitrust decisions," Todd added.
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A European Union court rules on Monday  whether Microsoft abused its near-monopoly on computer  operating systems to push out rivals, in a protracted case that  has major implications on the EU&#39;s power to enforce antitrust  policy.
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It concerns the European Commission ruling against Microsoft in March this year. Brussels found Microsoft guilty of breaking European Union antitrust law by abusing a dominant position in the market for PC operating systems.
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Microsoft agrees to comply with the European Commission's anti-monopoly ruling against it.
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A European Commission official due to take charge next month of theÂ antitrust case against MicrosoftÂ has been offered a job by a Brussels-based consultancy that lists the software vendor among its clients, the Commission and Microsoft said Thursday.
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Microsoft filed revised documents with  the European Commission on Thursday aimed at complying with a  landmark antitrust decision from 2004, the European Commission  said.