# China’s NDRC investigates Microsoft over alleged monopoly practices

Date: 2014

## The fact

In July 2014 China’s National Development and Reform Commission raided Microsoft offices in an anti-monopoly investigation while [Gates](/people/bill-gates) was still a technical adviser and large shareholder.

## Context

Neighbouring China filtering is a different compliance file. Neighbouring EU 2004 is a different regulator. Nadella was already CEO. He did not write the AML statute.

China filtering is neighbouring market access. EU 2004 is neighbouring Western antitrust.

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

National Development and Reform Commission of China carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is antitrust-pressure: a completed NDRC raid is an accountability-and-market-access shock. A raid is not a completed personal jail term.

## What is established and what is not

Established: July 2014 NDRC Microsoft investigation, independently reported.

Not established: that Gates was jailed in Beijing, or a unique later China-revenue coefficient from the raid.

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.

NDRC investigated. Microsoft China operated. Nadella was CEO.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies China’s NDRC investigates Microsoft over alleged monopoly practices, not a later speech about China’s NDRC investigates Microsoft over alleged monopoly practices.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. China’s NDRC investigates Microsoft over alleged monopoly practices on 2014-07-29 is not a licence to treat every later National Development and Reform Commission of China 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 China’s NDRC investigates Microsoft over alleged monopoly practices into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He was adviser and large shareholder. NDRC investigated. Microsoft China operated. Nadella was CEO. 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-Platform Power Concentration: https://factrail.ai/drivers/digital-platform-power-concentration

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-china-antitrust-idUSKBN0FY0K420140729
- https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ms-china-ndrc-2014