Commission delays effect of Microsoft antitrust ruling

Microsoft faced a deadline of 28th June to comply with the terms of the antitrust ruling – which imposed a €497.2 million fine on Microsoft and obliged the company to "untie" the Windows Media Player from the Windows operating system.

As the Court of First Instance is not likely to hear the case until September, the software giant has now been granted a small breathing space.

Background to the ruling

Following a five-year investigation, the European Commission found in March that Microsoft broke competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems onto the markets for work group server operating systems and for media players.

Because the illegal behaviour was still ongoing, the Commission ordered Microsoft to disclose to competitors, within 120 days, the interfaces required for their products to be able to "talk" with the ubiquitous Windows operating system.

Microsoft was also required, by 28th June, to offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player to PC manufacturers (or when selling directly to end users). In addition, Microsoft was fined €497 million for abusing its market power in the EU.

Microsoft's reaction to the ruling

Earlier this month, Microsoft asked the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg to annul the ruling, arguing that its terms would undermine innovation and global economic growth.

Microsoft followed this up on Friday with another request to the Court of First Instance, this time asking that the imposition of the Commission's sanctions be delayed until the Court has ruled on the annulment suit. This was necessary, said Microsoft, because:

"Once Microsoft releases software code under this decision, those intellectual property rights are lost forever, even if the Court grants our appeal. And once Microsoft releases a degraded product without media functionality into the market, you cannot pull the product back."

However, as any decision of the Court of First Instance can then be appealed to the European Court of Justice the whole process may take up to five years to fulfil, leaving Microsoft free to continue with its current strategy until then.

But Microsoft was still left with the deadline of 28th June by which to produce a version of Windows without Media Player – and the knowledge that the Court of First Instance would not consider a suspension request until September.

Enter the Commission which, in what it calls standard practice, has now withdrawn the deadline and has, according to a statement, "informed the European Court of First Instance that, in the interest of the proper administration of justice, it has decided not to enforce the remedies adopted on March 24 while a Microsoft application for interim measures is being considered".