Microsoft Could Pay Huge Penalty for EU Violation

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) may not have complied with a 2009 ruling that requires the Windows maker to offer European users more than one Web browsing option.

According to Reuters, European Union antitrust regulators are in the process of investigating the matter.

Reuters quoted Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who said, "We take compliance with our decisions very seriously. And I trusted the company's reports were accurate. But it seems that was not the case, so we have immediately taken action."

Further, Almunia commented that if the infringement is confirmed, "Microsoft should expect sanctions." Regulators hope to finish the investigation quickly.

Almunia told Reuters that this was the "first time that the Commission had dealt with a case in which an offender was suspected of failing to meet its commitments under antitrust rulings."

CNET adds that if Microsoft failed to obey the antitrust ruling, the company could incur a fine of up to 10 percent of its global annual turnover -- an amount that could total 5.7 billion euros, or $7 billion U.S.

In a statement to CNET, Microsoft admitted that it fell short of its responsibility to update the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 but claimed it was because of a technical error.

"While we believed when we filed our most recent compliance report in December 2011 that we were distributing the BCS software to all relevant PCs as required, we learned recently that we've missed serving the BCS software to the roughly 28 million PCs running Windows 7 SP1," the statement said. "While we have taken immediate steps to remedy this problem, we deeply regret that this error occurred and we apologize for it."

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