Microsoft Denied Second Delay In EU Antitrust Case

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

10 February 2006

Microsft was this week unsuccessful in its bid to secure a second deadline extension in its antitrust dispute with the European Commission.

In late January, the EC granted Microsoft a three-week deadline extension in its antitrust case against the software giant; this deadline is set to expire on February 15.

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.”

Although Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel announced that the company will make available source code from Windows Server, it is, as yet, unclear as to whether this information will satisfy the EC, which in any case is still awaiting the software giant's response to charges that the company has not met requirements set out by the Commission.

Speaking to Reuters in late January, following Mr Smith's announcement, Ms Kroes seemed to suggest that the offer was not satisfactory, observing that:

"Normally speaking, the source code is not the ultimate documentation of anything, which is precisely the reason why programmers are required to provide comprehensive documentation to go along with their source code,"

This week, EC spokesman Jonathon Todd announced, also according to Reuters, that:

"We have confirmed the deadline of February 15 on the basis that nearly eight weeks should be sufficient for Microsoft to reply to a comparatively short statement of objections."

Separately, the Commission has also denied Microsoft's request for access to selected documents which it believes may help its defence, claiming that they are all either internal or confidential.

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