Wednesday, March 24, 2004
With a $613 million fine about to be leveled against Microsoft by the European Union, the software company has given up trying to influence the EU's commissioners and, instead, has approached several antitrust authorities in individual nations in a last-ditch attempt to settle the case.
While Competition Commissioner Mario Monti has been upping the ante against Microsoft in recent weeks, the case will begin to move out of his hands on Wednesday. That's when the full EU commission is scheduled to vote on the case before officially announcing the fine and proposing remedies to Microsoft's behavior. The $613 million figure is at least twice the amount that had been bandied about in recent weeks.
Microsoft has attempted to settle the case for months, as its lawyers took part in marathon negotiating sessions with EU officials in an attempt to work out a settlement. Microsoft reportedly had offered concessions in all the major points of contention -- unbundling operating-system software for audio/video and servers, primarily -- but Monti wanted Microsoft to agree to future changes in business behavior that the software giant said it couldn't live with.
After the two sides narrowly missed reaching a settlement last week, Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, said: "We made every possible effort to settle the case, and I hope that perhaps we can still settle the case at a later stage."
Microsoft has said it will appeal the decision.
By: DocMemory
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