back to article Microsoft loses appeal against EU antitrust smackdown

The EU's second-highest court has rejected Microsoft's appeal on the antitrust fine levied by the European Commission four years about, although it did knock a cool €39m (£31.2m) off the total. The General Court was unmoved by Microsoft's arguments against the fine, which was imposed by the European Commission after Microsoft …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    How long as this case been going on for?

    At this rate Microsoft will be bankrupt before they have to pay the fine.

    Now that they're going the HP way burning cash making useless hardware it's shouldn't take very long.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How long as this case been going on for?

      Yeah, yeah... They did have their best ever year last year, IIRC.

      You let your desire to see MS fail override reality.

  2. g e

    And add some interest back on, hopefully

    As presumably M$ haven't paid up yet due to its 'ongoing' nature?

  3. Homer 1
    Coffee/keyboard

    Holy Crap!

    You mean Vole still hasn't paid this fine?

  4. Jeebus

    Good thing they've invested so much in Nokia, the resolute nature of the Swedish company will keep the MS coffers full.

    Oh wait.

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Fins do not like to be called Swedes

      see title

      1. The Baron
        Happy

        Re: Fins do not like to be called Swedes

        Also, Finns do not like to be called Fins.

        1. Mephistro
          Happy

          Re: Fins do not like to be called Swedes

          I just asked a fin whether it liked to be called a Finn, but it didn't answer. I smell a fish there...

  5. hitmouse

    Think how much the EU would make if they didn't allow Luxembourg to act as a tax haven for Amazon, Google, Apple et al.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Think how much employment the people of Luxembourg would lose if they weren't a tax haven. That's their USP.

      1. Asiren
        Angel

        Damn right. Without our tax h̶a̶v̶e̶n̶ efficient status, we'd just be another Belgium, and look how well they're doing.

        Actually, no, we wouldn't be another Belgium, because half of them commute over and work here anyway! So we *and* Belgium would be worse off.

        I suppose we do have the EIB, European Courts of Human Rights, and a few other institutions lying around. But kill off the tax efficiency, and the population would halve (okay, a quarter would leave...). Also, if you thought you'd seen a property bubble, OH BOY...

        So please don't. It's nice and cushy here!

      2. JetSetJim

        Re: Tax haven staffing...

        Isn't one employee (possibly part time) per company the going rate for staffing levels in tax havens?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Errrrr?

      Using Luxembourg 'to act as a tax haven'? Is your vivid imagination responsible for popping that thought in to your little head or did you believe something you read on the internet?

      I think you will find that MS (along with most US tech companies) are based out of Dublin for tax purposes.

  6. Herby
    Joke

    What to do?

    Maybe they can use the Euros to help out Greece.

    Just a thought! Lord knows they need it. Of course, maybe Bill can buy Greece and save it, but I doubt it.

    1. Lee Dowling Silver badge

      Re: What to do?

      Yeah, because with their two 100billion+ payouts already, 0.8bn is going to make a hell of a difference.

      The money would be better spent put towards alternatives to MS (e.g. LibreOffice government projects) because that would not only help the Greeks but everyone else too (Hell, the British government just shaved off 65m on their IT this year alone by negotiating with MS directly).

      But, actually, what will happen is it will end up being seen as a "windfall" to the EU and they'll use it for some international advertising campaign for green energy or some other such waste of space.

  7. wowfood

    what about inflation?

    Surely if they calculated the fine based on money back in 2005, they should add money back on for inflation.

    Not to mention the fact that every time I'm late paying a fine for something it generally increases... rapidly

    1. Asiren
      Big Brother

      Call in the bailiffs

      That way, they can tack on their "investigation" fee, charge 40% interest and bump it up 15% just for the hell of it.

      Sell it on a couple of times too, to compound the charges.

      Hey, seems like what they tried to do with my "fines". (Was an admin error by HomeChoice.) (Which in turn was SUCH an error on my part...)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    isnt a swede just

    a rather large turnip???

  9. Lars Silver badge
    Boffin

    Case COMP/C-3/37.792

    For those of you who are interested in the whole long story search for Case COMP/C-3/37.792 and read the pdf. That is where the EU came in and the text is very good and history to day.

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