[JURIST] The European Commission (EC) [official website; Microsoft case materials] Commissioner on Competition [official website] told the European Parliament [official website] Thursday that Microsoft [corporate website; EU decision website; JURIST news archive] continues to use "abusive" business practices which steadily increase the company's domination of the workgroup server market. Commissioner Neelie Kroes reported that Microsoft now has 70-75 precent of the market, a gain of approximately 10-15 percent from when the EC handed down its landmark anti-trust ruling [JURIST report] against the company in 2004. When the EU began its investigation of Microsoft in 1999, the company only held 35-40 percent of the market. The EC held that Microsoft's refusal to share information with competitors gave it an unfair advantage in compatibility between the server software and computers running Microsoft Windows.

Earlier this month, the EC sent an official letter of complaint [press release] to Microsoft over the company's pricing scheme for licensing the interoperability information. Microsoft was fined $613 million in 2004 for the original violations, and a further $357 million for non-compliance [JURIST report] with the ruling last July. Reuters has more.