The European Commission has given US software giant Microsoft an extra three weeks to submit documents justifying its position in a long-standing competition case.
Microsoft had had until Wednesday to respond to a so-called statement of objections made last month by EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes. 'This date has now been pushed back to February 15,' said her spokesman Jonathan Todd.
After several months of calm in the stand-off, the commission turned up the pressure in December by threatening to slap a daily fine of up to €2m on Microsoft for failing to comply with a ruling.
The US company responded by slamming the commission's criticism as 'unjustified' because it had submitted on time new documents it claimed that EU regulators and an independent trustee advising on the case had not even read.
The EU competition watchdog already fined the software group in March 2004 a record €497m for abusing its dominant market position.
It also called on Microsoft to market a version of its Windows operating system unbundled from its software Media Player and to divulge information about its operating system needed by manufacturers of rival products. The EU's second-highest court gave its backing in December 2004 to the commission order to implement remedies, which Microsoft wanted suspended.
