Memo: Antitrust: Commission welcomes CFI ruling upholding Commission’s decision on Microsoft’s abuse of dominant market position

The European Commission welcomes the 17 September 2007 ruling by the Court of First Instance upholding the European Commission’s 2004 decision on Microsoft's abuse of its dominant market position and confirming the totality of the fine imposed. In this decision, Microsoft was fined €497 million for infringing the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82) by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players (see IP/04/382 and MEMO/04/70). This conduct hindered innovation in the markets concerned to the detriment of consumers. To put an end to this abusive behaviour, the Commission ordered Microsoft to disclose interoperability information which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers and to offer a version of its Windows operating system without Windows Media Player. The Court’s ruling confirms that the Commission was right to prohibit Microsoft's anti-competitive conduct which harmed competition to the detriment of consumers.

European Commission: SPEECH/07/539: Neelie Kroes: Introductory remarks on CFI ruling on Microsoft's abuse of dominant market position http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/07/539&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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