EU dominates in antitrust, experts say
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A European Union appeals court's decision to uphold a 2004 antitrust order against Microsoft Corp. means that U.S.-based multinationals will continue to face tougher competition rules in Europe than at home, legal experts said.
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Business leaders, lawyers, regulators will have plenty to discuss when the court rules next week on Europe's antitrust sanctions against Microsoft.
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The European Commission, fresh from a major court victory over Microsoft, launched new antitrust investigations into the software giant on Monday, on suspicion it abused its market dominance.
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Most EU countries are failing to put in place policies aimed at making Europe the world's most competitive economy, a report says.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft failed Monday in its bid to overturn aÂ European Commission antitrust rulingÂ against it, when the European Union's second highest court dismissed the company's appeal and ordered it to pay the bulk of the Commission's legal expenses. TheÂ long-awaited decisionÂ by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg supports the Commission, the E.U.'s top antitrust regulator, on the two essential aspects of the case. The Commission was right to take action to prevent Microsoft from bundling in Windows Media Player into the Windows operating system, the court concluded. It was also right to force Microsoft to reveal interoperability information to makers of server operating systems. An order for Microsoft to pay a fine of â¬497 million (then around $600 million) also still stands. The only fault the court found in the Commission was the powers it granted to an independent monitoring trustee to oversee Microsoft's implementation of its 2004 antitrust ruling. Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, said: "We'll study this decision carefully and if there are additional steps that we need to take to comply with it, we will take them." European Commission President JosÃ© Manuel Barroso welcomed the ruling. "This judgment confirms the objectivity and the credibility of the Commission's competition policy. This policy protects the European consumer interest and ensures fair competition between businesses," he said. The Commission's allies also hailed the decision. "This is a great day for European businesses and consumers," said Thomas Vinje, who heads the legal team for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS). "This decision opens the prospect for dynamic competition in the software industry. No more user lock-in, no more monopoly pricing," he said. Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), said: "Through tactics that successfully derailed antitrust processes in other parts of the world, including the United States, Microsoft has managed to postpone this day for almost a decade. But thanks to the perseverance and excellent work of the European Commission, these tactics have now failed in Europe." Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel, described the court ruling as "a milestone for competition. It puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and designed lock-in is an acceptable business model, and forces Microsoft back into competing on the grounds of software technology." Software developer Jeremy Allison, co-author of the open source print and file server Samba, also approved the ruling. "This is a very important day for the Samba team: we hope to finally compete on a level playing field, without being denied access to interoperability information. Samba would then be able to offer consumers real choice, with the benefits of software freedom," he said. However, an industry group on Microsoft's side said the ruling was bad for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). "The Commission just got a treat from the court, but SMEs and consumers will actually foot the bill. Microsoft did not win today, but it is European software developers and consumers that really lost," said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology. It will take several hours and days to get a true assessment of the implications, he said, suggesting that the detail of the ruling might yet contain a "silver lining" for SMEs. "Following today's judgment, consumers and developers are unlikely to see the technologies they are demanding -- like voice recognition and multitouch interfaces -- integrated into Windows," he said. The implications of Monday's historic court ruling are being assessed by lawyers on both sides of the case, but already some things are clear. On the bundling question, the court stood by the Commission's order to Microsoft to develop a version of Windows with the Media Player stripped out. "The court makes clear that Microsoft retains the right to continue to offer the version of Windows bundled with Windows Media Player and that it is required only to make it possible for consumers to obtain the operating system without that media player, a measure which does not mean any change in Microsoft's current technical practice other than the development of that version of Windows," the court said in a statement summarizing the lengthy appeal ruling. Meanwhile, there was little room for interpretation of the court's decision concerning the interoperability side of the case. The court agreed with the Commission's finding that "Microsoft's refusal [to share interoperability information] limits technical development to the prejudice of consumers." Regarding the trustee, the court said the Commission was out of order granting the trustee an automatic right of access to Microsoft documents, premises and employees. It also said the Commission was wrong to make Microsoft pay all the trustee's expenses. Microsoft was ordered to pay 80 percent of the Commission's expenses, as well as those incurred by the Commission's allies in the case, including ECIS, as well as 80 percent of its own expenses. The Commission must pick up the tab for the remaining 20 percent. Microsoft's allies, including the Association for Competitive Technologies have to foot the bill for their own legal expenses.
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A European Union court rules on Monday whether Microsoft abused its near-monopoly on computer operating systems to push out rivals, in a protracted case that has major implications on the EU's power to enforce antitrust policy.
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InfoWorld - The take-up rate of broadband Internet access slowed sharply across Europe last year, while in some key markets, former monopoly operators are reclaiming market share lost to rivals in recent years, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association said in a statement Thursday. ECTA believes the two trends are connected.
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Three key anticompetitive issues addressed in agreement between European Commission and company, according to news report.
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A top European Union judge  challenged the EU executive's reasoning in its antitrust court  battle with Microsoft Corp. Friday, questioning why it opposed  the U.S. software giant's setting industry standards.
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BRUSSELS  - Risking another transatlantic tussle over Microsoft Corp., European Union antitrust regulators said Wednesday they were investigating whether the software giant's deal with media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. to develop anti-piracy software might lead to a new monopoly.
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The European Union&#39;s Court of First Instance has rejected Microsoft&#39;s appeal of the European Commission&#39;s 2004 landmark antitrust decision against the company, which concluded that the software giant had abused its dominant position in the computer industry &quot;by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems.&quot;
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A ruling against the European Commission in the Microsoft antitrust case could affect its ability to regulate competition.
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Two of the European Union's landmark antitrust decisions against U.S. companies are in court this week as WorldCom Inc. seeks a moral victory and Microsoft Corp. fights for immediate relief.
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Google Inc  so  dominates the online search and advertising market that  regulators are unlikely to challenge a merger of Microsoft Corp   and Yahoo , two antitrust experts said on  Friday.
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THE EUROPEAN UNION said that despite the fact that two of its key witnesses in its anti trust dispute against Microsoft have pulled out, it still has enough evidence to bring the monopolist to book.
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Microsoft and the European Commission faced off in open court on Thursday for the first time in their five-year legal battle over antitrust concerns.
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(InfoWorld) - A European Commission official due to take charge next month of theÂ antitrust case against MicrosoftÂ has been offered a job by a Brussels-based consultancy that lists the software vendor among its clients, the Commission and Microsoft said Thursday. Henri Piffaut, deputy head of the unit handling the long-running antitrust case, has asked for leave from his civil servant position in the Commission on personal grounds, said the Commission's competition spokesman Jonathan Todd. "The situation is fluid. The Commission hasn't responded to the request yet and for the time being he remains an employee here," he said. Piffaut is due to take over the top job in the unit next month from Cecilio Madero Villarejo, who has led it for the past seven years. He joined the unit as deputy head earlier this year. Despite the hiccup over replacing Villarejo, the antitrust case against Microsoft is unlikely to be affected by Piffaut's request to leave, Todd said. "I can't see this causing any delays," he said. If Piffaut is denied leave, he would have to give up his career at the Commission. He could also be prevented from working on cases he was linked to while serving as an antitrust official at the Commisison, the European Union's executive body. Piffaut has been asked to join LECG, an international firm of consultants, to head up a team of economists working on merger cases in the Brussels office. LECG wasn't immediately available to comment. Microsoft's spokesman in Brussels, Tom Brookes, said he had heard about Piffaut's possible job change but declined to comment further. Four years ago Microsoft hired Detlef Eckert, a senior Commission official in the information society department, whose job included overseeing the antitrust investigation being conducted by his colleagues in the competition department. Eckert was not bound by the tough conflict of interest rules that apply to antitrust officials.