Microsoft EU Antitrust Case

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On April 24, 2006, the much-awaited trial between the US based software major Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and the European Commission (EC)3 began at the Court of First Instance (CFI)4, Luxembourg (Refer Exhibit I for details on Microsoft)...... Microsoft was appealing against the ruling given by EC on March 24, 2004, that the company had abused its market leadership status by using its dominant position in the Windows operating system (O/S) to gain market share in the work group server O/S business. The EC ruling also stated that the company had added Windows Media Player (WMP)5 software to its Windows O/S and sold it free of cost......

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As a punitive measure, the EC imposed a fine of 497 million euros6 on Microsoft. The EC began investigations into Microsoft's business practices following a complaint from Sun Microsystems7 (Sun) in December 1998 which stated that Microsoft was trying to illegally gain market share in the workgroup server O/S segment. The EC also brought the WMP issue into the same case and after investigations lasting more than five years, finally gave its ruling against Microsoft. The company appealed against this decision at the CFI in June 2004. A special panel of 13 judges heard the arguments of the two parties between April 24 and 28, 2006 and was expected to give its ruling in the first quarter of 2007 (Refer Exhibit II for chronology of events in the case).........

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