European Commission Receives Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

12 February 2003

The European Commission confirmed this week that it has received a new antitrust complaint against Microsoft Corp.

The complaint was filed on January 31 by a coalition of global telecommunications providers including Nokia, Eastman Kodak, Fujitsu, NTT Communications, Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner, and Oracle, which have accused the US multinational of violating the European Union Treaty's Article 82 by bundling other products, such as music and video editing software into Windows XP.

According to a report from the AFX news service: 'The group alleges that Windows XP poses a new threat to competition, especially in mobile communications, digital music, video distribution and new web services.'

The coalition also claims that Micorosoft's Office software is deliberately highly incompatible for use with non-Windows programs such as Linux and Apple software.

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday quoted the group of telecoms companies as alleging that Microsoft's actions are harmful to EU consumers:

'Microsoft's overwhelming dominance - and its continued abuse of that dominance - reaches into every corner of Europe and harms virtually every business and consumer who uses a computer,' the coalition argued.

The EC is required by EU law to investigate any formal complaint, meaning that another case is likely to be opened to run in parallel with an earlier antitrust complaint against Microsoft, lodged by Sun Microsystems.

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