About that US$1.35 billion fine . . . efforts to translate Mirosoft's plea to have its fine reduced have been published.
Microsoft complained to the European Union asking it to annul or reduce the US$1.35 billion penalty levied against it by the EU Commission in February for antitrust violations.
The company's action came in the form of a lawsuit against the European Union that was filed back on May 9 but just recently published.
Its complaint is written in that peculiarly impenetrable dialect of legalese, heavily larded with law citations and documentation footnotes, that apparently is required for pursuing legal disputes lodged against the European Union.
However, Groklaw's Sean Daly has translated Microsoft's multipart complaint with an entirely admirable conciseness that we can't hope to surpass, so we won't try. Daly writes, "It's a blast from the past:
'We want clarity.' 'Our licenses were not expensive and everyone who wanted a license negotiated one.' 'Nobody listened to our paid experts.' 'The Commission's trustee got incriminating documents illegally.' 'Due process was not followed.' 'The fine is too heavy, since there was only a little partial problem with the licenses'.
Of course, US$1.35 billion is still an awful lot of money. And we can't even begin to guess whether the European court will see any merit in Microsoft's complaint to warrant relief.
However, Microsoft remains subject to the antitrust jurisdiction and continuing oversight of the European Commission. It would be ironic if its squirming and wailing were to convince commissioner Neelie Kroes that it still hasn't learned its lesson about the need to respect the EU Commission's authority such that she decided to take more drastic action.
After all, not even Microsoft has a divine right to sell its software in European countries.