RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
NPR's business news starts with Europe and a hefty fine for Microsoft.
It's not just hefty, it's historic. Europe's anti-trust regulators have fined the U.S. software giant a record $1.4 billion for defying an anti-trust ruling. In 2004, Europe ruled that Microsoft had abused its market dominance by withholding information other companies needed to make their products work smoothly with Microsoft.
Regulators say Microsoft continued to charge unfairly high royalty fees. They've already slapped Microsoft with previous fines. Adding today's, Microsoft will have had to pay about $2.5 billion to Europe's anti-trust regulators. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
