The Antitrust Price Tag

Microsoft has paid more than US$5.6 billion since 2003 in antitrust fines and settlements. This chart shows the plaintiffs, the date of the settlement or ruling that resulted in a fine, and the amount paid in millions of U.S. dollars. In some cases, a portion of the payment was applied toward patent-sharing or marketing cooperation deals that benefited Microsoft.

Not shown are class-action antitrust settlements reached with consumers in several states. Although Microsoft valued these settlements at nearly US$2 billion in aggregate, the bulk of them consisted of vouchers good for software and hardware from Microsoft and other companies. It’s not known how many individuals in each class action actually used the vouchers, nor is it possible to calculate the actual cost to Microsoft of fulfilling these discounts.

Plaintiff	Date	Amount
RealNetworks	Oct. 2005	$761
IBM	July 2005	$850
Gateway	Apr. 2005	$150
Burst.com	Mar. 2005