14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's increasing focus on opening up its proprietary software solutions and technology to third parties has not gone unnoticed by the antitrust regulators of the European Union. On March 4, 2009, the European Commission indicated that, because of the Redmond company's “good behavior” interoperability-wise, it no longer saw the need to continue with the full-time monitoring of the software giant. In this regard, the EC indicated that it was renouncing a full-time monitoring trustee in favor of ad hoc assistance from technical consultants.
“Microsoft has an ongoing obligation to supply complete and accurate interoperability information as specified in the Commission’s 2004 Microsoft Decision. However, given that the original set of interoperability information has already been documented by Microsoft, increased opportunities through private enforcement provisions in Microsoft's license agreements for third parties to exercise their rights directly before national courts, and experience gained since the adoption of the 2004 Decision the nature of the technical assistance that the Commission requires is now of a more ad hoc character,” the EC stated.
Back in 2004, Microsoft was found guilty on infringing on the Article 82 of the Treaty and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement. The EU's antitrust regulators concluded that the bundle of Windows Media Player and Windows, along with the Redmond company's failure to supply rivals with interoperability information, were a clear violation of anti-monopoly law and imposed a financial penalty of 1.68 billion Euros, no less than $2.13 billion. In the first half of 2008, Microsoft announced that it was embarking on a new path, one strongly committed to interoperability. As a consequence, the software giant started supplying competitors with documentation that would permit rival solutions to play nice with its own proprietary products. In March 2009 the EC responded by relaxing Microsoft's antitrust leash.
“The Commission considers that the ongoing monitoring that is still necessary can be performed more appropriately with the help of technical consultants who are available under a framework service contract to advise on issues that arise from time to time. In line with this, the Commission has today adopted a Decision which removes the Trustee provision from the 2004 Decision and repeals the 2005 Trustee Decision which provided for the modalities of the monitoring mechanism and the appointment of a monitoring trustee,” The European Commission added.