Microsoft Corp. failed Monday in its bid to overturn a European Commission antitrust ruling against it, when the European Union’s second highest court dismissed the company’s appeal and ordered it to pay the bulk of the Commission’s legal expenses.
The long-awaited decision by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg supports the Commission, the E.U.’s top antitrust regulator, on the two essential aspects of the case.
The Commission was right to take action to prevent Microsoft from bundling in Windows Media Player into the Windows operating system, the court concluded. It was also right to force Microsoft to reveal interoperability information to makers of server operating systems.
An order for Microsoft to pay a fine of
