The world’s largest technology firms are constantly trying to get ahead of each other in just about every market. Smartphones, tablets, games consoles – no matter what product they’re all trying to sell, it seems they’ll try to come out on top by any means necessary, but in some cases, are they taking it too far?
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This infographic shows that if they fall foul of the authorities or even each other, they could expect to pay a hefty fine or court settlement. The biggest tech-based lawsuit of all time saw Microsoft asked to pay a huge $1.4bn to the European Commission because they were seen to be behaving anti-competitively.
Billion-dollar blows
Two more lawsuits involving tech giants cost in excess of $1bn for those affected. One between Apple and Samsung concerning smartphone patents was pretty intense. The latter was forced to pay just a shade over $1bn to Apple, although on appeal the amount has been reduced to roughly half that amount.
The other cases listed here show that some firms will stop at nothing to ensure they remain market leaders, but it also shows that, as far as the customer is concerned, they can occasionally forget about the consequences of taking them for granted.
