EU Plans Mega-Fines for MS

The European Union intends to fine Microsoft for past antitrust abuses regardless of how the software giant changes its future business practices, said a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust office.

“We are minded to impose a fine for the past and minded to impose remedies for the future, and we will adopt a final decision which does exactly that,” the spokesman said.
(Wired News) The EU can fine violators up to 10 percent of their worldwide sales ? which would be more than $3 billion in Microsoft’s (MSFT) case. In practice, fines have never exceeded 1 percent, which would still be an EU record, but easily managed by a company with cash reserves of $49 billion.

The EU sent Microsoft a statement of objections accusing it of trying to monopolize new markets for servers and audiovisual players.