Microsoft and EU aiming for antitrust amnesty

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 8 Jul 2009 at 09:47

Microsoft has approached the EU in the hope of settling their regulatory squabbles before Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes leaves office at the end of the year.

According to a Bloomberg report, the centre piece of their talks will be the dispute over the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows, which the EC has ruled harms competition.

Settlement talks were due to take place in June, but Microsoft cancelled complaining that insufficient senior EU representatives would be able to attend, rendering the entire event pointless.

Its arbitrary solution was to strip the browser from the operating system in Europe - a decision which met with a frosty response from the EU, which claimed the decision offered the consumer less choice rather than more.

It is believed the EU's favoured option would see Microsoft bundle a selection of other browsers with Windows. However, the company has already shown it's not willing to bend on this issue even to avoid EU sanctions, meaning middle ground could be difficult to find.

The two parties are also expected to discuss complaints that Microsoft doesn't provide rivals with enough information regarding its Office suite to allow them to make compatible software.

Microsoft has been fined a total of 1.68 billion euros over the issue, and is appealing a recent 899 million euros verdict against it.

The software giant refused to comment on the story.