Microsoft lost an antitrust case last year by a single vote at Europe's second-highest court, according to two people with direct knowledge of the decision, a revelation that could influence other U.S. technology companies facing adverse rulings.

"Investors should be paying attention," said Jason Pompeii, an analyst in Chicago who follows technology companies at Fitch Ratings, a bond research firm . "That the vote was indeed so close suggests there was less consensus that this was the right thing to do, which bodes more favorably for companies currently under investigation."

The closeness of the vote may indicate that European Union courts are not a rubber stamp for decisions by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, especially in high-tech cases.

Thomas Jestaedt, an expert on antitrust law at the law firm Jones Day in Brussels, said, "This will give some hope to companies facing the court in the future. There's some likelihood that some of the other high-tech cases will go against the Commission. There's a lot of uncertainty in this area."

One U.S. technology company facing an antitrust inquiry, Intel, said knowledge of the split vote would not affect its strategy. "These are fundamentally different cases," said an Intel spokesman, Chuck Mulloy. The Commission charged Intel in July with abusing its dominance in computer chips.

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