US software giant Microsoft said that EU regulators were unjustified in proposing a record fine of €497m in connection with an expected ruling that the company abused its dominant market position.
'It's very difficult for Microsoft to see how a fine of this magnitude could be warranted under these circumstances,' a company spokesman said. 'It's certainly unwarranted because we think it comes only from the inability to reach a settlement on one issue after we essentially agreed on every other issue,' he added.
Sources close to the case in Brussels said the European Union's Competition Commissioner Mario Monti is proposing the fine, and that it was approved by EU competition regulators yesterday.
If the European Commission approves the fine, the spokesman said: 'we certainly will appeal.' He said the only stumbling block between EU regulators and Microsoft was 'our capacity to innovate' with applications like Media Player, which plays video and music.
If approved tomorrow, the fine would be the highest ever imposed by the EU's executive branch against a single company for contravening competition regulations.
To date, the biggest fine levied by the commission on a single company for infraction of competition rules was a €462m penalty against the Swiss chemical firm Hoffman-Laroche in 2001. The company was sanctioned for joining a cartel in the vitamin sector.
