Penalties worth 16,000 million

                             Penalties worth 16,000 million

Mergers, business practices, monopoly, cartels ... The list of reasons why the European Union has imposed fines on many companies is long. So much so that if we add the ten biggest sanctions that the European Commission has put, we have 12,418,901,250 euros, without counting the 4,340 million from Google. That is, 16,718 million.

According to the data of the European Commission, since 2014 has placed fines amounting to 8,500 million only in terms of cartels. Since 1990, the amount exceeds 28,000 million euros. And everything indicates that these figures will grow, since the fines are being increasingly larger.

The recent sanction to Google is one of those that the commission has imposed on technology companies, but it is a new milestone. First, because it is the highest to date (4,300 million) and because, in addition, it must be assumed by a single company.


 So far, the biggest economic penalty had fallen into a conglomerate of truck manufacturing companies: 3,800 million euros to be distributed between MAN, Volvo / Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF, according to the Commission, having agreed to the sales prices of their vehicles and have passed on to the buyer the costs of complying with the regulations on polluting emissions. The fine is for 2017.

Next to the one of Google, the one that the European authorities imposed on Microsoft in 2004 seems ridiculous (although, at the time, it was also quite famous and, in fact, it was a record for the time): 497 million for refusing to eliminate Windows Media Player of the Windows operating system.

Both resolutions (the Microsoft of 2004 and the Android) have certain similarities: the European Union accused the companies of taking advantage of their dominant position in the field of operating systems (computers and mobile phones) to impose some product of theirs (Windows Media Player and Google searches). A vision that, evidently, those sanctioned do not share.

The European Union demanded that Microsoft make its media player compatible with those of the competition and the company had, in addition, to sell versions of Windows without Media Player. And he also gave him 90 days to change his policies in this regard.

Microsoft claimed that removing this program would affect the performance of the operating system, but finally, and after the fine for not allowing interoperability with other programs in its operating system, Microsoft had to change the Windows code.

Different objectives

Later, in 2009, the authorities of the old continent scolded the company founded by Bill Gates for not pre-installing on Windows any browser alternative to Explorer. Again, the abuse of a dominant position was praised in order to hinder the competition. The solution, in this case, was to show users, the first time they opened the browser, a message that they had alternative browsers and that they could download them.

The fine for Intel is still suspended ten years later by a long legal battle

Now, in the current decade, Google seems to be the new Microsoft in this 'fight' between technology and European regulators. Google was already fined last year for its Google Shopping service (a shopping comparison service). And the resolution of a third antitrust case that follows is still known: that of AdSense (the company's advertising services).

But, although very famous, neither Microsoft nor Google are the only companies (especially from Silicon Valley) that have been exposed to important fines by the Commission. Intel also had to face, in 2009, a formal accusation of abusing its dominant position in the processor market (CPU) by granting anti-competitive discounts and making payments to delay or stop the deployment of competing products. The Commission imposed a fine of 1.

All sectors
In this case, it was Intel's main competitor, AMD, who filed a complaint about these practices. After the investigation, the company of the Pentium was sanctioned to offer discounts to the manufacturers of computers so that these only bought their computer processors.

The sanction was, up to Google, the highest fine imposed on a single company. But almost ten years later, the European authorities have not yet seen a penny of that sanction, since the fine remains suspended as a result of a long legal battle.

That same year, the Commission also announced another fine to a manufacturer of computer components. Brussels concludes that the memory manufacturer Rambus obliges, by law, to limit its royalties rates for certain patents of 'drams' memory chips.

But the European Union has not only imposed fines for monopolistic practices on (usually North American) technology companies. The penalties are distributed by automotive, pharmaceutical and even banking sectors.

In addition to the aforementioned case of behavior contrary to the free market of trucks, in 2012 several manufacturers of tubes for monitors (both for PC and TV) were fined 1,400 million euros.

When Joaquín Almunia was the Competition Commissioner, he decided to punish the banks with 1,710 million for participating in cartels in the interest rate derivatives industry: UBS, RBS, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and JPMorgan were the culprits. In this case, the Deutsche Bank was the one that had to face the highest amount: 465,861,000 euros.