The details of the proposed sanctions remain confidential. A
further meeting of Member State representatives is set for Monday,
to approve an appropriate level of fine in addition to the
sanctions. It is expected that the draft decision will then go
before the Commission for formal adoption on 24th March.
On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chief Counsel Brad
Smith met with Monti in Brussels. According to Reuters, the meeting
was a final attempt to reach a settlement and avoid a formal
finding against the company – albeit neither side disclosed any
details of the meeting.
Background
The Commission has been investigating Microsoft since 1998, when
competitors accused the company of failing to disclose hardware
specifications necessary to integrate non-Microsoft software into
corporate networks.
The long-running investigation began drawing to a close in
August last year, when the Commission issued a preliminary finding
that Microsoft's practices in Europe were anti-competitive.
At that time, Tilman Lueder, a spokesman for the Commission
said: "We are minded to impose a fine for the past and minded to
impose remedies for the future, and we will adopt a final decision
which does exactly that."
The Commission then gave the company a final chance to make its
case.
Microsoft filed these arguments in November. The bulk of its
defence fought against allegations that it is leveraging its
dominant position from the PC into low-end servers and that
Microsoft's tying of Windows Media Player to the Windows PC
operating system is anti-competitive.
The Commission's draft ruling has been circulating Commission
offices over the past few months, and reports suggest that a fine
will be imposed and the Windows Media Player will be untied from
Windows. This means that Microsoft would be required to offer its
European customers a version of Windows without Windows Media
Player.
The ruling is also likely to require Microsoft to reveal more
source code, to allow rivals such as Sun Microsystems to achieve
full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers, and thereby –
at least in theory – compete on a level playing field.
Any ruling issued by the Commission will not necessarily be of
immediate effect, because it could be appealed by Microsoft to the
European Court of Justice. Such cases can take three or four years
to go through the court process.
