EU: the great antitrust busters

In 2004, the European Commission finished a five-year investigation into Microsoft and concluded that the US tech giant had exploited a monopoly on PC operating systems. The fine was €497 million ($579 million). Within 90 days, Microsoft was obliged to offer a Windows product without its 'Mediaplayer' product.

In 2007, the European Commission went for Microsoft again, this time imposing a fine of €900 million. The reason was that they reckoned Microsoft had charged competitors unjustifably high license fees to avail of technical information. This violated previously agreed EU requirements.

In 2009, a record fine was issued with the breaking of the €1 billion barrier. This time, it was the chipmaker Intel, fined €1.06 billion in what was part of a near-decade long dispute over cartel activity. The EU said that Intel had abused its market position by obliging clients such as Saturn and Media Markt to sell PCs made with Intel chips.

In 2013, Microsoft had to dole out another €561 million to the EU. This time, the company was accused of failing to offer an adequate choice of browser to its customers, as it had promised it would a few years earlier. The Commission said that from May 2011 to July 2012, Microsoft had failed to do this.

In 2014, the European Commission slapped a fine of €138 million on four different chip manufacturers, including the Munich-based company Infineon, which had to pay the vast majority of the total amount. Their sin was that between September 2003 and September 2005, they had engaged in price controlling activity with the likes of Philips and Samsung.

In 2017, Google was ordered to pay a whopping €2.42 billion fine into the EU coffers, with the Commission accusing the search kingpin of manipulating online shopping searches, abusing its market position as a result. The specific transgression was that Google had prioritised its own services' price comparisons in search results ahead of its competitors.

In 2017, Qualcomm, a chip supplier of US behemoth Apple, had to pay €997 million to the EU. The accusation was that the US company had been paying a fortune to Apple in order to thwart its own competitors. It meant that Qualcomm had abused an already dominant position to exclude other LTE chipset makers from the market.