# The Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with the 2004 decision Date: 2008 ## The fact On 27 February 2008 the European Commission imposed an additional €899 million fine on Microsoft for failing to comply with 2004 interoperability remedies. [Gates](/people/bill-gates) was still chairman. ## Context Neighbouring 2004 decision is the parent. Neighbouring 2009 browser choice is later. He did not sit as the hearing officer. 24 March 2004 decision is neighbouring. 16 December 2009 browser choice is later. Bill Gates was Microsoft CEO until January 2000, chairman until February 2014, then a technical adviser until 2020, and a Gates Foundation co-chair. That is not authorship of every Windows copy, every GAVI dose, or every IRS schedule. Melinda French Gates is a different person. Bill Clinton is PER-000772, a different person. A pledge is not a coverage rate. A docket is not a personality. ## Evidence and sources European Commission carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently. ## Significance The path is antitrust-pressure: a completed non-compliance fine is an accountability instrument on delayed interoperability. ## What is established and what is not Established: 27 February 2008 Commission penalty, independently reported. Not established: that interoperability was thereby perfect, or a unique later Samba-share coefficient from the press room. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. The Commission fined. Engineers disclosed or delayed. Courts later reviewed.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies The Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with the 2004 decision, not a later speech about The Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with the 2004 decision. Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. The Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with the 2004 decision on 2008-02-27 is not a licence to treat every later European Commission communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average The Commission fines Microsoft for non-compliance with the 2004 decision into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He was chairman of the addressee. The Commission fined. Engineers disclosed or delayed. Courts later reviewed. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series. ## People - Bill Gates: https://factrail.ai/people/bill-gates ## Drivers - Antitrust Pressure in Digital Markets: https://factrail.ai/drivers/antitrust-pressure-in-digital-markets - Digital-Rights and Platform-Power Regulation: https://factrail.ai/drivers/tech-digital-rights-regulation ## Sources - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-eu-fine-idUSL2720080227 - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_08_318 ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/eu-microsoft-fine-2008