By Bruno Waterfield - 15th February 2006
The European commission has “disregarded evidence and denied due process” to Microsoft, the US software giant claimed on Wednesday.
Microsoft has filed evidence to counter EU competition watchdog claims that the computer company has failed to comply with an anti-trust ruling.
The US software firm must convince commission officials it has provided sufficient information to allow rivals to make their programmes work within Microsoft operating systems.
EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes can levy daily fines of €2bn a day – backdated to December 15 –unless Microsoft can show compliance.
The software company – accused of monopolistic practices surrounding ‘Windows’ operating systems – has come out fighting with a 75-page response to the commission.
“Hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors have worked for more than 30,000 hours to create over 12,000 pages of detailed technical documents that are available for license today,” the company claims.
“In addition Microsoft has offered to provide licensees with 500 hours of technical support and has made its source code related to all the relevant technologies available under a reference license.”
The company has gone public with accusations that “the commission had ignored key information and denied Microsoft due process in defending itself”.
“The commission waited many months before informing Microsoft that it believed changes were necessary to the technical documents, and then gave Microsoft only a few weeks to make extensive revisions,” the filing states.
“When the commission issued its statement of objections on December 21 2005, the commission and its experts had not even bothered to read the most recent version of those documents which Microsoft had made available on December 15 2005.”
The commission is expected to hold an oral hearing with Microsoft in a “few weeks”, said officials, before issuing a final ruling or fines for non-compliance.
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