BRUSSELS — European regulators on Wednesday charged Microsoft with an antitrust violation for failing to live up to a prior agreement to give users of its Windows software equal access to rival Internet browsers.
The decision by Joaquín Almunia, the European Union antitrust commissioner, opens Microsoft up to a substantial fine for defying the terms of a settlement reached in 2009.
The case also represents the first time a company facing antitrust penalties from Europe’s top enforcer has been sent a so-called Statement of Objections for neglecting to comply with the terms of a settlement, which allows companies to avoid fines.
“Companies should be deterred from any temptation to renege on their promises or even to neglect their duties,” Mr. Almunia said.
Mr. Almunia put Microsoft on notice that it must include adequate access to rival browsers in European versions of its next-generation operating system, Windows 8, which goes on sale at the end of the week.
Mr. Almunia said he warned Microsoft officials “at the highest level possible” of his concerns about Windows 8 and had made clear to them what “should be avoided if they don’t want to take the risk of new investigations.”
Microsoft apologized for the latest infringement when it came to light in July, calling it a technical problem it had learned of only recently.
On Wednesday, Microsoft said, “We take this matter very seriously and moved quickly to address this problem as soon as we became aware of it.”
“Although this was the result of a technical error, we take responsibility for what happened, and we are strengthening our internal procedures to help ensure something like this cannot happen again.”
The significance of Wednesday’s action could reach beyond Microsoft. It comes as Mr. Almunia’s office is negotiating with Google to try to settle the commission’s concerns about that company’s dominance of the Internet search and advertising markets.
Legal experts say that by cracking down on Microsoft, Mr. Almunia is also sending a warning to Google that settling its case may not be possible unless there are also effective monitoring mechanisms.
Mr. Almunia said that the case involving Google was different and that there was no direct link with his decision to charge Microsoft. But he underlined that the move against Microsoft was “a very serious message not to infringe the commitments that have been agreed and have that been given status as legally binding.”
Mr. Almunia can levy a fine totaling up to 10 percent of a company’s global annual revenue. In Microsoft’s case that could mean a penalty of $7 billion, but analysts say it is probably unlikely to reach that level.
The largest single fine ever levied by the European antitrust authorities was €1.1 billion, or $1.4 billion, in 2009 against Intel for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market. Intel is still appealing that ruling.
Microsoft has paid a long series of fines to European regulators over the past decade.
In 2008, Microsoft was fined nearly €900 million in so-called periodic penalties for defying a decision that regulators had imposed on the company.
In June, the General Court, the second-highest in the Union, handed a small victory to Microsoft by reducing the fine by €39 million to €860 million after finding that the commission had miscalculated the amount.
Microsoft also paid fines of €497 million and €281 million for separate but related offenses, bringing the total to €1.7 billion during its battle with European regulators.
The current dispute stems from the settlement of a case concerning Microsoft’s dominance in Internet browsers — a dominance that the company has relinquished to market forces in recent years.
In Microsoft’s 2009 settlement, the company did not pay a fine but instead committed to installing a system called Browser Choice Screen with Windows. It was intended to offer users alternatives like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox to counter the strength of Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s own browser product. The choice must be offered for five years, according to the agreement.
Millions of European users of the Windows 7 SP1 version of the software may not have been offered a choice of browsers between February 2011 and July 2012, Mr. Almunia said.
The company said it only learned of the error when the commission sent a notification about reports it had received indicating that alternative browsers were not being offered on some personal computers.
On Wednesday, Mr. Almunia saved his sharpest words when discussing Microsoft’s highly anticipated new Windows 8 operating system, one which the company has high hopes for.
In particular, Mr. Almunia said users of Windows 8 should be able to remove the icon for Microsoft’s browser, called Internet Explorer, from the start screens on their personal computers if they had chosen another browser as their default option.
Once users had made the choice of another browser, “there should not be unnecessary warning windows or confirmations by the user, and the Internet Explorer icon should also be unpinned from the Start screen,” said Mr. Almunia.
Mr. Almunia said it had examined another operating system by Microsoft called Windows RT for tablet computers but had decided not to take that investigation further — at least now.
“We will remain vigilant and we will continue to monitor all aspects of Microsoft’s compliance with its commitments in the future,” he said.
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