By Chris Jones - 24th April 2006
Microsoft’s attempt to overturn an EU decision forcing it to provide sensitive information to its rivals begins on Monday at the European courts in Luxembourg.
The move by the giant software group comes over two years after it was found guilty of abusing its dominant market position in March 2004.
EU competition regulators fined the corporation a record €497m, and forced it to make its Windows programming code available to programmers of rival systems.
Microsoft has consistently claimed that the Windows code is sensitive commercial information and should not be given away for free, and has called on the courts to quash the commission’s decision.
The hearing comes after an increasingly acrimonious exchange of letters between Microsoft and competition commissioner Neelie Kroes.
Kroes believes that Microsoft has failed to do enough to meet its demands, and has threatened the corporation with further fines – up to €2m a day – if it continues to delay.
However, the company claims that it has provided sufficient information to allow rival systems to interact with Windows, a claim backed by a number of its competitors.
The week-long hearing will offer no immediate way out of the impasse, with a decision unlikely until the end of the year at the earliest.
But it will provide Microsoft with a public forum to air its grievances, not least its contention that the commission’s analysis of its market position was flawed, both economically and legally.
The group’s lawyers will also claim that the commission was wrong in stating that integrating Windows Media Player software within the operating system was unfairly hampering competition.
They will point to the success of iTunes, the media player operated by Microsoft’s chief rival Apple, which has continued to grow despite the ubiquitous Media Player.
Microsoft has also accused the commission of denying it access to important papers that it claims could have helped its defence.
Kroes has dismissed the claim, saying that the documentation – from Microsoft’s rivals – was classified information.
Speaking at the informal meeting of EU competitiveness ministers in Graz on Friday, Kroes said that the hearing would not let Microsoft off the hook.
She said she hoped the two sides would “come to a positive conclusion” over Microsoft’s requirement to make more of its code available.
But she warned that the threat of daily fines was still hanging over the corporation if it failed to act.
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