Microsoft has submitted documents required by the European Commission in an effort to avoid further fines for breaching an antitrust ruling, the European Union regulator said yesterday.
The commission said it was studying the files and that it was too early to tell whether the world's largest software company would be subject to an additional non-compliance penalty.
"We have received technical documents from Microsoft. Our people are looking at it, including the trustee, and it's too early at this stage to give any indication of whether there will be another payment, another penalty, and if there is to be another penalty, how much it would be,"a commission spokesman said.
Microsoft said that it had made a final submission of 2,600 documents which "further demonstrates our ongoing commitment to reaching full compliance with the commission's decision of March 2004". "We are working with the trustee to ensure that all of this documentation meets his requirements and to respond promptly and fully to any further requests for information," the statement said.
Earlier this month, EU regulators fined the company €280.5 million for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling that required it to share key information on its office servers with rivals. They warned the company to comply or face bigger daily fines from next month.
The information is needed so that rivals' servers can compete on a level playing field with Microsoft's own. Microsoft must help its rivals interconnect smoothly with its Windows operating system for personal computers.
Microsoft says it has made massive efforts to comply but that it will appeal against the non-compliance fine as well.
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