EU deal drops 'free competition'
38533
Brussels' 50-year commitment to free competition has been dropped from a draft treaty to reform the EU.
265198
Downing Street has indicated the treaty that emerges from next week's EU summit will not be put to a referendum.
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.
482395
Spanish energy group Gas Natural said it was dropping its bid to buy electricity company Endesa, leaving it to E.ON of Germany to buy it and create a new European energy champion.
91472
EU telecoms ministers back rules that cut the charges for using mobile phones abroad.
161687
EU antitrust regulators gave the green light Monday to a merger of Britain&#39;s Automobile Association with travel and insurance firm Saga after determining that the deal would not stifle competition.
98308
Ofcom deregulation plan a goer thanks to unbundling European regulators have backed a move by Ofcom to drop regulations that force BT to offer competitors price-capped wholesale broadband nationwide.â¦
725173
Euronext  and NYSE  won endorsement for their $14 billion merger from European regulators on Tuesday, removing a major hurdle for the first transatlantic stock exchange.
690794
A source says Europe's antitrust watchdog has had a change of heart on the deal following the U.S. DOJ's loss on the case in court.
764929
A ruling against the European Commission in the Microsoft antitrust case could affect its ability to regulate competition.
203127
After the deal it struck with the European Commission, Microsoft is withdrawing its appeals as no longer necessary.
134496
The EU adopts plans to force European energy markets to be open to more competition.
676321
Microsoft has dropped two outstanding appeals of European antitrust rulings, following the deal struck with the European Commission at the beginning of this week, the company said in a statement Wednesday.Last year, Microsoft appealed the &#8364;280.5 million fine it incurred for failing to provide interoperability protocols to rivals, as required in the landmark 2004 European Commission antitrust ruling. The appeal was filed with the Court of First Instance (CFI).It also appealed against the Commission&#39;s demands that it make the protocols available to open-source software developers.However, in light of&#160;the agreement reached between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes&#160;on Monday, these appeals became redundant.Less than a month after suffering&#160;a crushing defeat in its original appeal of the 2004 ruling, Microsoft said Monday it would finally comply with that ruling. All the required interoperability protocols would be made available to the open-source community and the price for them would be slashed, Microsoft said.The two outstanding appeals to the CFI were no longer necessary, said Erich Andersen, European General Counsel for Microsoft.&quot;We believe it&#39;s important at this stage to focus all of our energies on complying with our legal obligations and strengthening our constructive relationship with the European Commission,&quot; he said in the statement.The Commission welcomed the withdrawal of the appeals, spokesman Jonathan Todd said.The only loose end remaining in the nine-year long antitrust battle between the world&#39;s biggest software maker and Europe&#39;s top competition authority is the calculation of fines still to be paid for Microsoft&#39;s three and a half years of non-compliance.The &#8364;280.5 million fine imposed in July last year was the sum of daily fines of &#8364;2 million for not honoring the ruling to that date. When that fine was announced, Kroes said the Commission would increase the daily fine to &#8364;3 million.Microsoft was officially deemed in compliance with the 2004 ruling on Monday, over 14 months after the last fine was imposed. A rough calculation would put the new fine at close to &#8364;1 billion. When added to the &#8364;280.5 million fine imposed last year and the original &#8364;497 million fine imposed in 2004 the total of antitrust fines in the case is about &#8364;1.8 billion.The Commission will announce the final tally toward the end of this year, Todd said.
568604
Six Hollywood studios have settled  charges that they curtailed price competition in the sale of  films to pay-television channels in the European Union, the  European Commission announced on Tuesday.
314558
The United States and the European  Union averted a legal clash over rivals Airbus and Boeing  Tuesday, agreeing to talks on eliminating billions of dollars  in subsidies to the world's top two plane makers.
438776
BRUSSELS, Oct 29 (IPS) - Just two months before a deadline set by the  European Union for signing all-embracing free trade accords with  some of the world's poorest countries, the EU has admitted  that it will have to reduce its ambition.
529019
Microsoft early this morning dropped its decade-long antitrust battle with European regulators by agreeing not to appeal a landmark Sept. 17 court ruling.