Microsoft moved this week to put the last of its European anti-trust contretemps behind it — and tried to save a boatload of money at the same time — when it appealed the last fine, one for approximately $1.35 billion, levied against it late last decade by the European Commission.
According to published reports, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) attorneys argued that the fine was undeserved and excessive.
The arguments were presented to the EU’s Luxembourg-based General Court — part of the European Court of Justice — on Tuesday.
The fine, the largest ever at the time, was imposed against Microsoft in 2008 by the EC — the European Union’s (EU) executive branch — for not immediately complying with a 2004 ruling that it had used its market dominance to block competitors in the workgroup operating system arena from building products that integrated with Microsoft products by withholding interoperability documentation.
