Microsoft Awaits EU Response After Submitting Antitrust Proposal

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 1, 2005 - 5:04am.

Brussels -- The EU announced that it has begun studying a compliance proposal that was submitted by software giant Microsoft just before deadline at midnight on Tuesday. The eleventh-hour proposal was just the latest development in a long-running antitrust dispute between the European Commission and Microsoft, which still could face massive fines equal to 5% of its global sales, according to EU officials. "The contacts continued late yesterday evening, and now we're examining what they've put on the table," said EU spokesman Jonathon Todd. "The Commission will now carefully analyze what has been put on the table and decide whether or not we consider that Microsoft has complied with the March 2004 decision." Last March, the Commission ruled that Microsoft had abused its market dominance in servers and media player software and ordered the company to share protocol information with rivals. A decision is expected by the end of next month.
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