About nine months ago, Microsoft was handed its — er — bum by Europe's Court of First Instance, with the court ruled that Microsoft's nearly decade-long fight against the European Commission's antitrust decisions must end, and that the company must pay the $1.43 billion fine that has been accruing since 2004.

After the defeat, and facing the possibility of up to $1.6 billion in additional fines for failure to comply, the head Microsoftie announced that Big Evil would stop fighting, pay up, and play fair. In February, the Commission finally made a decision on the non-compliance fines, and hit the Empire with an extra $1.4 billion. Mr. Ballmer, for his part, painted it as a complete non-issue, and went back to plotting world domination and the assimilation of Yahoo. The Commission went on investigating Microsoft's monopolistic mayhem, and opened a new investigation when the OOXML debacle landed.

Now we learn that Microsoft apparently has a different definition of "stop fighting" than everybody else — big surprise there — and will indeed begin fighting the Commission's ruling again. According to reports, Evil Incorporated has already appealed the $1.4 billion non-compliance fine to the Court of First Instance — the one already quite adept at serving Microsoft cream of tokas — but only to seek "clarity from the court." We know the pod people are thick, but how much clearer can you get than "cough up $1.4 billion"?
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Justin Ryan is News Editor for LinuxJournal.com.
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