14 DAY TRIAL // It is an uncommon site to see the world's software giant barking back, but that is exactly what happened in their response to the EU Commission's ruling a few days ago when they claimed that they were still the bad guys.
In a letter written to the EU Commission, the company voiced its displeasure with what they called "absence of access [to information]." "The absence of access is seriously prejudicing Microsoft's rights of defense," one of its lawyers wrote in the letter, which was sent to the commission on Monday. Microsoft is accusing the antitrust regulator of seriously violating the software group's right of defense and breaking its own rules of procedure.
A Microsoft spokesperson added that "It is premature for Microsoft to allege we are riding roughshod over their rights of defense because no definitive conclusion has yet been reached on their requests." The letter mainly claims that the group has only been granted access to 29 out of 100 relevant documents, and that 25 of the released documents were actually part of the correspondence between the Commission and Microsoft itself.
Ian Forrester QC, a partner at White & Case and one of the senior lawyers working for the group, adds in the letter: "I feel it is difficult to deny there is an infringement of what most lawyers in Brussels would regard as normal rights of defense. Indeed, I take the liberty of suggesting that normal rights of defense are being trumped by the supposed need to avert a 'danger to effective competition."