The documents were due to be handed over in July, and the
Commission has confirmed that it has received them. Microsoft is
seeking to prove that it is making its market-dominating Windows
operating system interoperable with software from other
suppliers.
The case has been running for a number of years, and centres on
how Microsoft uses the power it posseses from the fact that its
Windows computer operating system runs on around 95% of
computers.
The first verdict in the anti-trust case came in March 2004 when
Microsoft was found to be acting anti-competitively and was ordered
to ensure that its operating system works with rival companies'
software.
A hearing in December 2005 found that the company was not
complying with that order and ordered it to do so under pain of
daily fines. In July the Commission levied fines of €1.5 million a
day from that December hearing onwards, which added up to €280.5m.
It threatened to double the fines if the company did not
comply.
Microsoft claims that it is working hard to achieve the goal of
licencing information on its systems to competitors. The July
documents were to be the seventh and final instalment of its
attempts to meet the Commission's orders, it said.
"Microsoft is dedicating massive resources to ensure we meet the
aggressive schedule and high quality standard set by the trustee
and the commission in this process,'' the company previously said
in a statement.
"We received the technical documentation from Microsoft," said a
Commission spokesman in a news conference today, according to
Reuters. "The competition services are currently analysing it with
the help of the trustee. It is too early to say whether they
complied with the decision."
The trustee is a UK professor, Neil Barrett, who helps to
monitor the firm's compliance. He was nominated by Microsoft.
"It is too early at this stage to give any indication of whether
there will be another payment, another penalty, and if there is to
be another penalty how much it would be," said the Commission
spokesman.
In addition to the July non-compliance payment of €280.5m,
Microsoft was fined €497m in the original antitrust judgment in
2004.
The company said that it was trying to comply with the 2004
decision, and that it had had 300 people working on the compliance
documentation.
