Mario Monti, the European Union"s competition commissioner, is vigorously defending his handling of the antitrust case against Microsoft, amid criticism over the size of the fine and for treading on U.S. regulators" toes.
The European Commission last month ordered the software giant to strip media playing software from its flagship Windows operating system and pay a record $613 million fine for its anticompetitive behavior. "As for the remedies imposed, they were the minimum necessary to allow effective competition,"" Monti said Friday in a speech at a competition law forum in Switzerland.
Monti said the fine was not large, considering Microsoft"s size. "As a percentage of turnover, the fine is far from being the highest imposed by the commission, although in absolute terms it is high simply because of the enormous turnover of Microsoft in the EU."" Monti denied the working relationship between EU and U.S. regulators was damaged by the former"s probe into Microsoft.