EC Grants Extension In Microsoft Antitrust Case

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

26 January 2006

It emerged this week that the European Commission has granted Microsoft a three-week deadline extension in its antitrust case against the software giant; but on Wednesday the firm said it would release inter-operability source code as required by the EU.

The EC in December issued a Statement of Objections against Microsoft for its failure to comply with certain of its obligations under the March 2004 Commission decision, which found Microsoft to have infringed the EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant position by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players.

One of the remedies imposed by the decision was for Microsoft to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers.

The Statement of Objections indicated that the Commission’s preliminary view, supported by two reports from the Monitoring Trustee, was that Microsoft has not yet provided complete and accurate specifications for this interoperability information. After giving Microsoft an opportunity to reply to the Statement of Objections, the Commission threatened to impose a daily penalty.

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes announced at the time that: “I have given Microsoft every opportunity to comply with its obligations. However, I have been left with no alternative other than to proceed via the formal route to ensure Microsoft’s compliance.”

Microsoft now has until February 15 to respond to the European Commission's Statement of Objections.

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday that the company will make available source code from Windows Server that would satisfy the Commission's ruling. "What we are talking about licensing is source code for Windows workgroup operating system and the source code for Windows desktop operating system," he said.

Microsoft had appealed the Commission's ruling to the European Court of Justice, which rejected the firm's initial demand to stay the ruling pending the appeal. On Wednesday, the court said it would hold a full hearing on the case from April 24 to April 28.

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