It appears that Microsoft is wishes to handle this issue as delicately as possible. The company has an expensive history as far as antitrust charges are involved: Microsoft was sentenced by the European Union to pay hefty fines in the past and history might repeat itself in this case as well.

The first fine came back in 2004, when the Redmond company had to pay 500 million Euro for bundling a media player with the operating system. Four years later, Microsoft also received a 899 million Euro fine due to having breached the 2004 ruling.

Microsoft has been claiming for a long time that the EU will always be keen on fining large corporation because of the money involved. Then again, all the rulings are based on European laws, laws that Microsoft did managed to breach.

At present time it seems that Microsoft’s main argument before the EU will be its next OS release. The upcoming Windows 7 is supposed to feature an option to switch off IE8, thus allowing users to go for the web browser of choice. But will this be enough to appease the European court?