Corporate & Securities Law

Microsoft and EU Settle

By David Fischer

The AP reports:

The European Union has dropped long-standing antitrust charges against Microsoft Corp. after the company agreed to give users of the Windows operating system a choice of up to 12 other Web browsers.

Under the terms of the deal with regulators announced Wednesday, Microsoft will avoid further EU fines if it provides a pop-up screen that lets European users – from March – replace Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or add another browser such as Mozilla’s Firefox or Google’s Chrome. Internet Explorer is used by a majority of global internet users.

The deal will also allow computer manufacturers to ship PCs without Internet Explorer in Europe.

The EC press release is here and Microsoft’s statement – and links to several relevant documents – is here.

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Full post as published by Antitrust Review on December 16, 2009 (boomark / email).