Microsoft accuses EU of collusion

Allegations by US software giant Microsoft that the European commission colluded with its rivals have been met with the threat of further fines.

The company claims that the EU executive has violated its neutral position by seeking to “educate” Professor Neil Barrett, the independent trustee appointed to ensure Microsoft’s compliance with a March 2004 antitrust ruling.

Microsoft also alleges that the commission and the trustee had “inappropriate” contact with its rivals, thought to include IBM, Sun and Oracle.

Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes confirmed that she had received Microsoft’s complaint, and warned the company against going too far.

“If we pursue the line we are following now, there will be fines and they won’t be small fines,” she said.

Microsoft is already facing the possibility of daily fines of €2m for failing to comply with the commission’s original ruling.

Two years ago, the EU executive found that the corporation had abused its dominant market position, fining it €497m and ordering it to make its software more compatible with rival systems.

But in December 2005, Barrett claimed that the company had not done enough to improve interoperability with other systems, prompting further threats of fines from Brussels.

Microsoft has consistently refuted the commission’s claims, and believes that the regulator has deliberately set out to penalise it.

“The commission, the trustee and Microsoft’s adversaries were secretly collaborating in a manner inconsistent with the commission’s role as neutral regulator and the trustee’s role as independent monitor,” Horacio Gutiérrez, Microsoft’s lawyer, told reporters on Thursday.

He said that key papers which would have allowed the company to respond more fully to the commission’s December complaint had not been made available on time.

“The commission waited until two days before Microsoft’s deadline [February 15] to provide copies of certain correspondence between the commission and four American companies who have long been Microsoft’s adversaries in various judicial and regulatory proceedings,” Gutiérrez said.

The commission maintains that the company has no right to access many of the documents it has called for, such as confidential letters to the trustee.

Microsoft’s appeal against the December decision will be heard on March 30 and 31. If it loses, it could face immediate, daily fines until it complies fully.

The company’s appeal against the original judgement of March 2004 will be heard by the European courts in April.

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