Europe's general court has upheld almost all of a giant fine levied against Microsoft over an antitrust case first brought by the European Commission's competition watchdog in 1998.
The General Court of the European Union turned down Microsoft's request to dismiss a €900m (£721m) fine levied in 2008, though it did cut it slightly - to €860m.
In all, with two previous fines, the case has cost Microsoft a total of €1.64bn.
That makes it the largest total fine from a single European antitrust case. The largest single fine, of €1.09bn, was levied in 2009 against chipmaker Intel.
Microsoft was found guilty of failing to provide interface code to allow rivals to hook into its Windows server software at a reasonable price; the EC in 2004 exacted a "penalty for noncompliance", claiming the prices being charged for access to the code was exorbitant - and hence tantamount to non-compliance.
The court upheld that finding, but noted a 2005 letter from the commission which said Microsoft didn't have to freely distribute code that wasn't its own and which was freely available elsewhere.
That letter gave Microsoft some room to think it was permitted to continue acting the way it had until 2004, and should have been "taken into account in... Source/Origin >> Read More
