Will Microsoft’s latest set-back in the courts be good for competition? Dimitrios Sinaniotis reports
On his last day in office, Judge Bo Vesterdorf, president of the Court of First Instance (CFI), upheld the European Commission’s decision that Microsoft had abused its dominant position under Art 82 of the EC Treaty (see Microsoft Corporation v European Commission: T-201/04 [2007] All ER (D) 98 (Sep)).
The 1,373 paragraphs of the judgment confirm that Microsoft abused its dominant position in the PC operating system market by refusing to disclose interoperability information to allow competitors to make products that work properly with Windows, and by tying the sale of Windows Media Player with the sale of Windows operating system.
Almost four years ago (23 March 2004) the Commission found that Microsoft had infringed Art 82 by engaging in two separate types of behaviour and imposed a fine of more than €497m (Commission Decision 2007/53/EC, Case COMP/C-3/37.792, OJ 2007 L 32, p 23).
Not surprisingly, the Commission welcomed the CFI’s judgment and in its press conference Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for competition policy, stated that the court’s
