hankyoreh

South Korea's corporate watchdog said Wednesday it consents to a decision by U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. to withdraw its appeal against an antitrust ruling issued by the watchdog.

On Tuesday, Microsoft was found to have withdrawn its appeal against a ruling by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) that fined the company for breach of fair competition regulations and ordered the separate sale of bundled programs from its Windows operating system.

In February 2006, the FTC fined Microsoft 33 billion won (US$35 million) and ordered it to separate MSN instant messenger and Media Player programs from its Windows operating system.

Microsoft's withdrawal "reaffirms" its illegal activities in the past, the FTC said in a statement.

It added that unfair businesses obstruct consumers' benefits and technological innovation even in the field of information technology.

The case, for which sentencing was originally set for today, is expected to be officially concluded soon because of the watchdog's consent.

The software giant recently lost an appeals court case to overturn a similar antitrust ruling by the European Commission that imposed a record fine of $690 million for its breach of anti-trust law.


SEOUL, Oct. 17 (Yonhap)