A Luxembourg-based European courton Wednesday turned down an appeal by Microsoft to delay sanctions imposed on the software giant by the European Commission (EC), the executive arm of the European Union (EU).

The European Court of First Instance found Microsoft had not shown it could suffer irreparable damage as a result of sanction simposed in March after the EC found it had abusively wielded its Windows operating system monopoly.

"Microsoft's application for interim measures is therefore dismissed in its entirety," the court said in a statement.

The EC had demanded that Microsoft change its business practices and levied a fine of 497 million euros (about 613 million US dollars), the biggest ever imposed by the EC in an anti-trust case.

Microsoft demanded the sanctions to be suspended until the case receives a civil court hearing.

Welcoming the court ruling, the EC said in a statement that the judgement means the sanctions "become effective immediately."

Implementation of the EC's decision "will not only benefit consumers of computer products in terms of choice of media players and choice of work-group servers, but will also stimulate innovation," the statement said.

The European Court of First Instance is the EU's second-highest court and Microsoft could still appeal to the highest EU court, the European Court of Justice.

ded that the company separate the Media Player software from its Windows operating system within 90 days, claiming the U.S. software giant was hindering fair competition.

Source: Xinhua