Stan Beer
Monday, 25 May 2009 14:37
Opinion and Analysis
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Microsoft
has lashed out at the European Commission over its treatment in a new
antitrust case and for once the Redmond software company may have a
point. The EC has brought a case against Microsoft over its long time
inclusion of Internet Explorer as part of Windows.
Microsoft has been bundling IE with Windows since
1995 and was forced to make it easy for users to choose other browsers
by the US government back in 2002 but this appears to be not good
enough for the EC.
However, the issue for Microsoft is not the case itself but the fact
that it does not believe that the EC is giving it the opportunity for a
fair hearing.
The problem is that under EU law, all defendants in an antitrust suit
have the right for a preliminary hearing so that it could put forward
its side of the story and the EC supposedly extended Microsoft that
right.
The problem for Microsoft is that the EC scheduled Microsoft's
preliminary hearing for June 3-5, the exact time when the most
important worldwide intergovernmental competition law meeting,
the International Competition Network (ICN) meeting, will be held in
Zurich, Switzerland.
What that means, according to Microsoft, is that it would not get the
chance to present its case before the key EC decision makers who will
all be in Zurich.
Microsoft asked for an alternative time but the EC refused so
Microsoft, presumably not wishing to present its case to second tier EC
officials, has pulled out.
This of course has enraged Microsoft which is crying foul.
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