Microsoft bids to halt Commission antitrust case

This week, Brussels has seen a courtroom drama like few before

This week, Brussels has seen a courtroom drama like few before.Normally the capital of the EU revolves around documents that lawyers, officials and bureaucrats sift over for months on end.

That is particularly true of antitrust cases, such the European Commission's five-year-long campaign against Microsoft.

On Wednesday, the software giant got a chance to answer back, in courtroom- style conditions, in its attempt to stop the Commission from changing its business practices and imposing a record fine.

The occasion was the start pf a three-day hearing the software company has asked for to respond to the Commission's charges. The audience it is targeting may be as much national government representatives as the Commission itself.

READ MORE

Microsoft's top lawyers and the company's chief foes are all trying to win one of the most important antitrust cases for a generation.

"This is not a trial; it's an administrative hearing with its own procedures," said one person following the case. "The Commission [competition staff] has two consensuses it wants to build up - with other [EU member state] competition enforcers and within the Commission itself."

The hearing - to which the general public is not admitted - is a chance for Microsoft to undermine any such agreement and so sway the Commission from the course it seems set on taking.

Since beginning its case in 1998, the Commission has developed two areas of concern.

The first deals with the way that the "servers" that link workstations in offices across the world interact with ordinary desktop computers, for which Microsoft's Windows operating system holds a virtual monopoly.

The Commission and Microsoft's foes - which include Sun Microsystems and Novell - say it is unfair that non-Microsoft-based server programs do not work as well with Windows, and that the software has unfairly "leveraged" its monopoly over Windows into a separate market.

Microsoft says the programs are already interoperable, and that to share further data on the workings of its system would be to infringe intellectual property.

The Commission's second charge cuts to the heart of Microsoft's business model - and concerns the integration of its Media Player program with the Windows platform.

Here the Commission's demand for Microsoft to strip out Media Player from the rest of Windows - or incorporate a rival program - echoes a short-lived US court order to unbundle the Internet Explorer browser from the rest of Windows.

More generally, the European case deals with the same issues as the US process, now subject to a court settlement - alleged leverage and bundling - while looking at different products.

The Commission hopes to reach a decision by about March next year. First it must consult an advisory committee of member state officials, which is why the national representatives will be a key audience this week.

If no agreement is reached, and the Commission comes out with the negative decision most people expect, the case is bound to head to the European Court of Justice for final resolution.

This week marked one of the first courtroom-style moments in the European case - but it will by no means be the last. - (Financial Times Service)