On Monday, top antitrust regulators from the 15 nations in the European Union will gather here in the Centre Borschette, a bunkerlike building a stone's throw from the headquarters of the European Commission, to discuss a draft ruling that finds Microsoft guilty of abusing its dominance in operating software.
With this meeting, the clock on the five-year-old antitrust case against Microsoft begins to run down. In less than two weeks, barring a last-minute settlement, the European Commission is expected to declare Microsoft an abusive monopolist, impose a fine of $100 million to $1 billion and order the company to make fundamental changes to the way it sells software in Europe.
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