Microsoft fined €561m following antitrust investigation

Almunia says US software company broke a legally binding pledge to offer a choice of web browsers.

The European Commission yesterday (6 March) announced that it was fining Microsoft €561 million for breaking its pledge to offer a choice of web browsers to users of its Windows operating system.

Joaquín Almunia, the European commissioner for competition, said that the US software company had broken a legally binding commitment made in 2009. Microsoft had already admitted the failure last year,

blaming a technical error.

It is the first time that the Commission has fined a company for failing to comply with commitments made after an antitrust investigation. The commitment formed part of a settlement reached in 2009, after the Commission looked into Microsoft’s alleged abuse of a dominant position by tying Windows users into using the Internet Explorer web browser. The investigation found that Microsoft had not given users a choice in Windows software sold from May 2011-July 2012, affecting an estimated 15 million users.

“Legally binding commitments reached in antitrust decisions play a very important role in our enforcement policy because they allow for rapid solutions to competition problems,” Almunia said yesterday. “A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly.”

In a statement Microsoft said it took “full responsibility” for what it described as a “technical error”. The statement added: “We provided the Commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps to strengthen our software development and other processes to help avoid this mistake – or anything similar – in the future.