Microsoft &#39;loses fine delay plea&#39;
300914
A European court has turned down an attempt by Microsoft to delay a big fine from the European Commission, the Reuters news agency has reported.
571577
Another lawsuit and a big technical delay for Longhorn. Misery, thy name is Microsoft.
523369
Microsoft Corp. will be ready to comply with the European Commission&#39;s demands for changes to its Windows operating systems if a European court rejects its request for the measures to be suspended, a spokesman for the company said Monday.
688714
A European court dealt Microsoft Corp. a severe blow Monday as it rejected the company's appeal of a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling and upheld a $613 million fine against the world's largest software maker.
633445
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft failed Monday in its bid to overturn aÂ European Commission antitrust rulingÂ against it, when the European Union's second highest court dismissed the company's appeal and ordered it to pay the bulk of the Commission's legal expenses. TheÂ long-awaited decisionÂ by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg supports the Commission, the E.U.'s top antitrust regulator, on the two essential aspects of the case. The Commission was right to take action to prevent Microsoft from bundling in Windows Media Player into the Windows operating system, the court concluded. It was also right to force Microsoft to reveal interoperability information to makers of server operating systems. An order for Microsoft to pay a fine of â¬497 million (then around $600 million) also still stands. The only fault the court found in the Commission was the powers it granted to an independent monitoring trustee to oversee Microsoft's implementation of its 2004 antitrust ruling. Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, said: "We'll study this decision carefully and if there are additional steps that we need to take to comply with it, we will take them." European Commission President JosÃ© Manuel Barroso welcomed the ruling. "This judgment confirms the objectivity and the credibility of the Commission's competition policy. This policy protects the European consumer interest and ensures fair competition between businesses," he said. The Commission's allies also hailed the decision. "This is a great day for European businesses and consumers," said Thomas Vinje, who heads the legal team for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS). "This decision opens the prospect for dynamic competition in the software industry. No more user lock-in, no more monopoly pricing," he said. Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), said: "Through tactics that successfully derailed antitrust processes in other parts of the world, including the United States, Microsoft has managed to postpone this day for almost a decade. But thanks to the perseverance and excellent work of the European Commission, these tactics have now failed in Europe." Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel, described the court ruling as "a milestone for competition. It puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and designed lock-in is an acceptable business model, and forces Microsoft back into competing on the grounds of software technology." Software developer Jeremy Allison, co-author of the open source print and file server Samba, also approved the ruling. "This is a very important day for the Samba team: we hope to finally compete on a level playing field, without being denied access to interoperability information. Samba would then be able to offer consumers real choice, with the benefits of software freedom," he said. However, an industry group on Microsoft's side said the ruling was bad for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). "The Commission just got a treat from the court, but SMEs and consumers will actually foot the bill. Microsoft did not win today, but it is European software developers and consumers that really lost," said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology. It will take several hours and days to get a true assessment of the implications, he said, suggesting that the detail of the ruling might yet contain a "silver lining" for SMEs. "Following today's judgment, consumers and developers are unlikely to see the technologies they are demanding -- like voice recognition and multitouch interfaces -- integrated into Windows," he said. The implications of Monday's historic court ruling are being assessed by lawyers on both sides of the case, but already some things are clear. On the bundling question, the court stood by the Commission's order to Microsoft to develop a version of Windows with the Media Player stripped out. "The court makes clear that Microsoft retains the right to continue to offer the version of Windows bundled with Windows Media Player and that it is required only to make it possible for consumers to obtain the operating system without that media player, a measure which does not mean any change in Microsoft's current technical practice other than the development of that version of Windows," the court said in a statement summarizing the lengthy appeal ruling. Meanwhile, there was little room for interpretation of the court's decision concerning the interoperability side of the case. The court agreed with the Commission's finding that "Microsoft's refusal [to share interoperability information] limits technical development to the prejudice of consumers." Regarding the trustee, the court said the Commission was out of order granting the trustee an automatic right of access to Microsoft documents, premises and employees. It also said the Commission was wrong to make Microsoft pay all the trustee's expenses. Microsoft was ordered to pay 80 percent of the Commission's expenses, as well as those incurred by the Commission's allies in the case, including ECIS, as well as 80 percent of its own expenses. The Commission must pick up the tab for the remaining 20 percent. Microsoft's allies, including the Association for Competitive Technologies have to foot the bill for their own legal expenses.
100706
Software giant Microsoft MSFT.O has   filed an appeal against a 280.5 million euro ($356.4 million)   fine the European Commission imposed in July, holding it defied   a 2004 antitrust ruling.
609432
A U.S. judge said Tuesday she will likely defer to an agreement on desktop search forged between Microsoft and the plaintiffs in the U.S. government's antitrust lawsuit against the software vendor, instead of responding toÂ a complaint from rival Google.
414824
The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general are concerned that Microsoft is revising deadlines that it agreed to as part of its antitrust settlement. At issue are changes that Microsoft says it needs to make in the schedule for releasing documentation related to Vista, according to a court document filed Tuesday.
54499
Microsoft's attempt to get EU antitrust penalties against it suspended turns to the question of its media player.
68932
The European Commission said that Microsoft has met a key deadline in its antitrust standoff with the US software giant, staving off the threat of further fines.
195469
MicrosoftÂ has filed an appeal against the latest antitrust fine imposed on it by the European Commission, a Microsoft spokesman said on Tuesday.
264220
Microsoft has lost on all key points in its competition dispute with the European Commission - but what is the impact of the ruling?
695641
Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it had decided not to appeal a December ruling by a European Union court ordering it to immediately implement EU antitrust sanctions imposed last March.
676744
LUXEMBOURG -- Microsoft lost its appeal of a European antitrust order Monday that obliges the technology giant to share communications code with rivals, sell a copy of Windows without Media Player and pay a $613 million fine _ the largest ever by EU regulators.
139605
Dealing Microsoft a major legal setback, a European court yesterday rejected the software giant&#39;s appeal to suspend antitrust sanctions imposed by European regulators in March.
646456
The European Commission ruled in March that Microsoft had indulged in anti-competitive behaviour with Windows and set a fine of Â£333mn plus orders to produce a version of Windows without the Media Player within 90 days or face further action.
554392
Microsoft&#39;s compliance with a&#160;U.S. antitrust settlement&#160;will remain under court supervision for another two years, in part because the company delayed producing documentation required by the court, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.