European Union closes case against IBM

The European Commission has accepted IBM’s offer to counterparties in order to close a lawsuit filed against them last year. The computer giants were accused of abusing its dominant position in the market for mainframe maintenance.

Last September, the European Commission published a proposal made by IBM to keep it from being fined for abusing their dominant position.

European officials have expressed concern that the American manufacturer would have imposed conditions of supplying spare parts in order to penalize competitors. IBM dismissed allegations of such practices, but concurrently offered remedies to correct their
market behaviour so that they are sufficient for European authorities to close the case without penalties.

IBM has stated that they are committed to supplying spare parts and sufficient information to third parties responsible for maintenance of their equipment in a reasonable condition and these practices do not involve any discrimination.

They said that if that did not meet their commitments, the company could be liable to a fine that could account for up to 10% of its turnover. It informed in written format the decision of European Union.

The ruling also notes that they also have been investigated on the sale of IBM server packages and the linking material that is central to their own system of using such servers. The three companies that have filed the complaints have also withdrawn their
cases.

This announcement comes a day after the European Union announced that they have postponed their decision on whether to authorize the purchase of Motorola by Google. The commission want to study the further documentation that they have asked the search engine
company to submit. European officials want assurance that the said purchase will not violate competition regulation laws.

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Posted by Awais Khan on Dec 15 2011. Filed under Business, Europe, Latest News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry