Even to seasoned observers of the European Commission’s nine-year antitrust battle with Microsoft, there must have been a strange sense of dislocation as the regulator’s 2004 ruling was finally upheld in court on Monday.

Though most of the companies involved in that fight hailed from the US, the judgment was delivered in Luxembourg, drafted by an Irishman and read out by a judge from Denmark. The original Commission ruling was prepared by a Spaniard and handed down by Mario Monti, the Italian EU competition commissioner. He has since been replaced by a Dutch official, Neelie Kroes.