Microsoft documents EC antitrust 'mishandling'

Microsoft on Thursday published documents that include detailed claims about how the European Commission has allegedly mishandled its antitrust case against the software giant.

The documents include Microsoft's formal response to the EC and two reports into Redmond's technical documentation, which it claims were written by independent experts.

This comes just a week after Microsoft filed a response to the EC that explained why it believes it has complied with the antitrust ruling in 2004. At the time, the company was unwilling to reveal the full documents, although it published a summary which included a criticism of the way the EC has handled the process. The EC confirmed last week that it had received Microsoft's submission but questioned the accuracy of some of Microsoft's claims.

In the response document published on Thursday, Microsoft again attacked the EC over the way it has handled the antitrust case.

Microsoft said in the document: "In contrast with Microsoft's extensive efforts to meet its strong commitment to compliance, the Commission's conduct raises a number of important concerns that will have far-reaching effects in future cases and that raise serious questions about the propriety of seeking to impose huge fines in this case."

It also accused the EC of changing its mind about its demands, and not putting its request in writing to avoid it impacting the Court of First Instance. Microsoft is currently pursuing two cases against the EC related to the antitrust case - one is appealing against the original ruling, and one is appealing against the EC's request that server protocol information can be used in open source projects, which Microsoft claims violates its intellectual-property rights.

The document states: "The Commission continually changed its interpretation of what technical documentation was required by the vague language in the decision, and refused to put its new interpretations in writing despite repeated requests from Microsoft, out of concern that this new interpretation would come to the attention of the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg."

The EC is also accused of denying Microsoft access to communications between the Commission and its monitoring trustee, as well as the EC and other consultants.

Microsoft claimed: "The Commission has denied Microsoft's fundamental right of defence by prohibiting fair and full access to the file underlying the Statement of Objections, including correspondence between the Commission and the outside experts upon whose evidence the Commission relies. In defiance of its own recent declaration of increased transparency, the Commission declares these experts to be 'internal' for the purpose of shielding its communications with them but 'external' for purposes of relying on their reports."

The EC was not available for comment at the time of writing.

Last week, the Free Software Foundation said Microsoft's attack on the EC was outrageous.

Ingrid Marson writes for ZDNet UK