News
Releases
No. 83/05
October 05, 2005
Microsoft Antitrust Case: EU Commission Appoints Trustee to Advise on
Compliance with 2004 Decision
The European Commission has appointed Professor Neil Barrett, a computer
scientist, as the Trustee who will provide technical advice to the
Commission on issues relating to
Microsoft’s compliance with the
Commission’s 2004 Decision (see
IP/04/382). Professor Barrett will begin
his mandate immediately.
The Commission decided in
March 2004 that Microsoft Corporation broke the
EC Treaty’s ban on abuse of monopoly power (Article 82) 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. The
Commission’s Decision imposed a fine of €497 million on Microsoft and
required the company to implement remedies as regards both work group
server operating systems and media players.
The Decision foresees a Monitoring Trustee to assist the Commission in
monitoring Microsoft’s compliance with the Decision. The Decision requires
that the Monitoring Trustee must be independent of Microsoft, must possess
the necessary qualifications to carry out his mandate and have the
possibility to hire expert advisors to assist him in carrying out tasks
within his mandate.
The exclusive responsibility for ensuring that Microsoft complies in full
with the 2004 Decision rests with the Commission. The Monitoring Trustee’s
role is to provide impartial expert advice to the Commission on compliance
issues. For example, as regards the interoperability remedy, where
Microsoft is required to disclose complete and accurate interface
documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to
achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers, his expertise
might be used in assessing whether Microsoft’s protocol disclosures are
complete and accurate and whether the terms under which Microsoft makes
the protocol specifications available are reasonable and
non-discriminatory. On tying, the Trustee might be asked to examine
whether Microsoft has properly implemented the requirement to offer to PC
manufacturers a version of its Windows client PC operating system without
Windows Media Player.
In accordance with the terms of the Decision, Microsoft submitted several
candidates for the position of Monitoring Trustee. The Commission
carefully examined all candidates in terms of their expertise and
impartiality and determined that Professor Barrett was the most qualified
to carry out the Monitoring Trustee function.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes's meeting with Microsoft CEO
Steve Ballmer
Competition
Commissioner
Neelie Kroes had a meeting with Microsoft CEO Mr. Steve Ballmer in
Brussels on 5th October 2005 within the normal course of relationships
between the Commission and Microsoft. She informed Mr. Ballmer that the
Commission had appointed Professor Neil Barrett as Trustee to provide
technical advice to the Commission relating to Microsoft's compliance with
the March 2004 competition Decision (see IP/05/1215). The Commission is
not going to make any further comment on the meeting.
Further Contact Information
Press and Media Relations
Delegation of the European Commission
2300 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.eurunion.org/PressRoom
Tel: 202-862-9552
Fax: 202-429-1766
