"Microsoft was the first company in fifty years of EU
competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure
to comply with an antitrust decision", said European Competition
Commissioner Neelie Kroes. "I hope that today's Decision closes a
dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance with the
Commission’s March 2004 Decision."
In 2004 the Commission found that Microsoft had abused its
dominant position in the software market, fined it €497m and
ordered it to give other software developers the information they
needed to make their technology interoperable with Microsoft's on
reasonable terms.
The Commission has now ruled that only from 22 October 2007 did
Microsoft offer the information on fair terms, and has fined it for
its behaviour up to that date.
"Today’s Decision concludes that the royalties that Microsoft
charged for…access to the interoperability information prior to 22
October 2007 were unreasonable," said a Commission statement.
"Microsoft therefore failed to comply with the March 2004 Decision
for three years, thereby continuing the behaviour confirmed as
illegal by the Court of First Instance."
"Microsoft continued to abuse its powerful market position after
the Commission's March 2004 Decision requiring it to change its
practices," said Kroes. "Microsoft continued to stifle innovation
by charging other companies prohibitive royalty rates for the
essential information they needed to offer software products to
computer users around the world. Charging such an unreasonable
price effectively rendered the offer of the information
pointless."
"Microsoft's behaviour did not just harm a few individuals or a
handful of big companies ... directly and indirectly this had
negative effects on millions of offices in companies and
governments around the world," she said.
The fine is the third in four years imposed by the Commission on
Microsoft. As well as 2004's €497m fine there was a penalty payment
charged in July 2006 for the company's non-delivery of complete
interoperability information to the Commission.
That fine was €280.5m, €1.5m a day for each of the 187 days of
non-compliance that had elapsed between the original order and that
fine.
Microsoft had appealed the original 2004 Decision to the Court
of First Instance, which in September backed the Commission. In
January of this year the Commission launched fresh antitrust
proceedings against the company on similar grounds.
The new cases argue that some of Microsoft's technology is not
interoperable enough with competing software and that its bundling
of the Internet Explorer browser with its Windows operating system
is anti-competitive.
Last week Microsoft made a public commitment to
interoperability, but the Commission has said that while it
welcomes the sentiments it will wait to see if they are put into
practice.
"We don't want talk and promises - we want compliance," said
Kroes. "We take positive changes to business practices very
seriously. But again, I stress that a press release…does not
necessarily equal a change in a business practice. If change is
needed – and as I say, I have reached no conclusion on that – then
the change will need to be on the market, not in the rhetoric."
