The European Commission (EC) on Monday welcomed a court ruling which upholds its 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft -- keeping a record fine of millions of euros against the company in place.
"This judgement confirms the objectivity and the credibility of the Commission's competition policy. This policy protects European consumer interests and ensures fair competition between businesses in the internal market," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said the decision by the the European Court of First Instance (CFI) Monday morning will "give consumers more choice in software markets."
"That decision set an important precedent in terms of the obligations of dominant companies to allow competition, in particular in high tech industries. The court ruling shows that the Commission was right to take its decision," she said.
She called on Microsoft to fully comply with its legal obligations to desist from engaging in anti-competitive conduct and vowed that "the Commission will do its utmost to ensure that Microsoft complies swiftly."
The 13-judge Grand Chamber of the CFI said in its verdict that "the court considers that the Commission was correct to conclude that the work group server operating systems of Microsoft's competitors must be able to inter-operate with Windows domain architecture on an equal footing with Windows operating systems if they are to be capable of being marketed viably."
"The absence of such inter-operability has the effect of reinforcing Microsoft's competitive position on the market and creates a risk that competition will be eliminated," it added.
As for the issue of Microsoft tying of its own Media Player to Windows operating systems, the Luxembourg-based court said it agreed with the EC that it "would lead to a weakening of competition in such a way that the maintenance of an effective competitive structure would not be ensured in the near future."
As the abuse of a dominant position was confirmed, the court left the amount of the fine unchanged at 497 million euros (686 million U.S. dollars).
The commission found in 2004 that Microsoft abused its dominant power in the PC operating system market by refusing to supply competitors in the work group server operating system market with interface information necessary for their products to inter-operate with Windows and harmed competition by tying its Windows Media Player product to its Windows operating systems.
The EU's antitrust watchdog also levied a record fine of 497 million euros against the U.S. software giant.
Microsoft challenged the decision at the CFI, the EU's second-highest court, in June 2004.
Source: Xinhua
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