Microsoft meets antitrust ruling deadline, attacks Commission

But a war of words erupted between the two parties after Microsoft accused the Commission of ignoring critical evidence in its haste to attack its compliance with the ruling.

“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. 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 licence,” the company said in its 75-page response.

Microsoft says it has filed with the Commission two independent expert reports that conclude that the interoperability information provided by Microsoft meets current industry standards. The company also accuses the Commission of ignoring key information and denying 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,” says the filing.

Nor had the Commission and its experts bothered to read the most recent version of the documents Microsoft had made available in time for an earlier deadline of 15th December, it says.

In response the Commission advised that it would be considering the filing carefully but that “It is of course the European Commission that will decide whether Microsoft is compliant with the March 2004 Decision, and not Microsoft.”

The Commission stressed that it had repeatedly reminded Microsoft of the need to provide complete and accurate specifications and had appointed a Monitoring Trustee (from a panel suggested by Microsoft) to assess the completeness and accuracy of the technical documentation.

The Commission then refuted Microsoft’s allegation that neither it nor the Monitoring Trustee had read the documents provided on 15th December prior to issuing the Statement of Objections on 21st December.

In fact, says the Commission, this documentation was actually supplied on 26th December to the Commission, and as it addressed only "formatting issues" raised by the Monitoring Trustee it was not substantially different from that which the Commission had previously examined.

Nor was the source code licence, recently offered by Microsoft, necessarily a solution to the company’s failure to provide complete and accurate specifications, said the Commission. It was up to Microsoft to explain how and why the source code offer was relevant to ensuring its compliance.

Microsoft has requested an Oral Hearing, which is likely to take place in the next few weeks.

The Commission will then consult with competition regulators from the Member States on whether Microsoft has complied with the March 2004 ruling. If it is found not to have complied then the Commission may impose daily fines on the firm of up to €2 million, backdated until 15th December, and running until Microsoft complies with the ruling.