Microsoft faces huge fines from the European Commission

Microsoft is facing fines to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros from the European Commission as part of a move to get the software company to comply with antitrust laws.

The amount of the fine is being decided today by a meeting of 25 EU countries, and will be announced on Wednesday.

According to Reuters, the fine is set up to €2 million (£1.38 million) a day since December 15, 2005.

This will be added on top of the €497 million that Microsoft already owes in fines since March 2004.

The Commission found that "Microsoft used near-monopoly power from its Windows operating system to harm competitors making 'work group servers', which run printing and sign-on services in offices", according to the Reuters report.

Microsoft was deemed to be dragging its feet at handing over coding information that increases interoperability with Windows with competitors' software, so the Commission ruled that Microsoft would be fined daily starting in December 2005.

The fines seemed to have worked, as Microsoft only took a few months to come up with a plan.

According to the Reuters report, Microsoft denies slowing down the proceedings and says that it first offered a draft for interconnection software in 2004, but the Commission rejected it, finding it "fundamentally flawed".