EU discusses Microsoft fine amount
European competition regulators met on Monday to discuss the amount of a fine it will impose on software giant Microsoft for failing to comply with a European Commission antitrust decision.
The fine can be set at up to 2 million euros (1.4 million pounds) a day for Microsoft and would be the first time the Commission punishes a company for what it sees as defying an order to remedy an abuse of a dominant market position.
Members of the 25 national competition authorities are scheduled to meet in Brussels between 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) and 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), according to an official Commission schedule.
The penalty, likely to run into hundreds of millions of euros, comes on top of a record 497 million euro fine the Commission already imposed in its landmark antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004.
It signals the Commission's determination to force Microsoft to obey its decision as well as a loss of patience after the company has had two years to comply and has used every available legal avenue to spin out the process.
The Commission, Europe's top antitrust authority, ruled in 2004 that Microsoft shut out rivals by withholding information that would help them make server software as compatible as Microsoft's own software with its ubiquitous Windows operating system.
It demanded that Microsoft provide that information and now says it has not done so sufficiently.
A source familiar with the matter said on Friday that the Commission is ready to raise the maximum daily fine if Microsoft continues not to comply.
The Commission can set a fine of up to 5 percent of a company's average daily turnover in the previous year. Microsoft's turnover in 2005 was $40 billion, according to its website, averaging just under $110 million a day.
The fine will be backdated to run from December 15 to the date when officials from national competition authorities met to endorse the Commission's proposal. The date of the meeting, before Monday, has not been made public.
|
|
