Brussels, 16/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday evening, Microsoft answered the statement of objections sent by the Commission last December (EUROPE 9096). The European competition authority will give the response close scrutiny to determine whether the extent to which parts of the Microsoft source code have been divulged meet its expectations or whether it will be necessary to impose fines on Microsoft (of up to EUR 2 million a day). An oral hearing, prior to any decision of this kind, is foreseen in coming weeks. Possible daily fines would be imposed retroactively as of 15 December 2004.
After being granted more time, until 15 February, in which to answer the objections (initially, the deadline was 25 January), Microsoft had announced through the press that it would allow developers to have access to certain source codes (EUROPE 9117). The firm argued that, with such action, it was fully meeting its obligations in interoperability terms imposed in March 2004 (EUROPE 8673). On the strength of the technical opinion of the independent operator appointed in October, Neil Barrett, the Commission is, however, far from being of the same opinion and retorted that it is up to the Commission alone to determine to what extent the obligations have been met. In a press release published on Wednesday after receiving Microsoft's response, the Commission recalled that the proposed source code licence is currently being examined by Mr Barrett and that tests on the market were also being carried out. The divulgation of source codes, however, is not as such part of the obligations imposed on Microsoft and, at best, is only a complement to the complete specifications required, Neelie Kroes has stressed. She now awaits to be convinced by the explanations provided by Microsoft in its response, but the tone of the exchange has toughened.
The recrimination of Microsoft which, early February, reproached the Commission for not respecting its right to defence and for refusing access to certain elements of the dossier (EUROPE 9123) already showed this new turn that things were taking. In a press release published on Wednesday, the firm Redmond states that the Commission ignored “critical evidence” and “waited several months before making it known that it thought changes were needed to the technical documentation, only giving a few weeks in which to make considerable changes”. It went on to add that “when the Commission published its statement of objections on 21 December, it and its experts had not even bothered to read the most recent version of those documents submitted to them on 15 December”. This argument was rejected on bloc by Neelie Kroes' services, which recalled that the firm had only forwarded these elements to them on 26 December, well after the deadline for providing “adequate and complete” interface specifications (15 December) and after the sending of the statement of grievances (21 December). These documents “are not substantially different from those examined in the context of the statement of objections”, the Commission also says.