Brussels, 15/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - Tired of vainly waiting for complete technical information from Microsoft on the inter-operability of its Windows system, Neelie Kroes, is threatening to increase fines if nothing is done before 23 November. In an interview to the British Guardian newspaper on 15 November, the Commissioner for competition stated “I don't have an eternal life” and affirmed that, “I am not impressed if someone says 90% of the information is already there when we need 100%. It's a jigsaw and some parts are missing…In my opinion, this information should have been here a couple of months ago”. Her decision of March 2004 (EUROPE 8854) demanded the US firm to provide all technical information needed for its competitors to install software that is compatible with Windows but the Commission is still not satisfied and may decide to increase sanctions.
More than two years after its initial decision, the Commission pointed out in July 2006 that Microsoft had still not met its inter-operability obligations and imposed a fine on the company of €280.5 million (EUROPE 9231). A backdated fine on which it made a ruling in its statement of objections in December 2005 (EUROPE 9096) and which it planned to increase if information still proved incomplete, inaccurate and therefore unusable. Article 24§2 of Regulation 1/2003 on implementation of Article 81 and 82 of the Treaty explains that the Commission could impose fines of up to 5% of daily turnover to compel the company to respect previous decisions. Opposing the clarity of the inter-operability response, Microsoft, at the beginning of October appealed to the Court of First Instance against the fine (EUROPE 9279).
Set at €1.5million a day for the period 16 December 2005 and 20 June 2006, this amount could rise to €3million from 31 July 2006, confirmed the Commission on Wednesday. The last time Microsoft sent any information was on 19 July (EUROPE 9243), which the Commission regarded as insufficient and subsequently requested the missing information in a week's time. It hopes that the technical documentation will finally be complete and available at the end of November so that potential licensees can test it. On the basis of their commentaries and the opinion of an independent agent, the Commission will then decide whether the documentation is actually operational or whether it has to increase the fine. (ab)