US software giant Microsoft has opened a new chapter in its seven-year competition stand-off with EU regulators, urging a top EU court to quash a €500m fine.
The five-day trial started this morning at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, the EU's second highest court.
Microsoft has requested the trial in the hope of recouping all or least part of the fine, which it has already paid. But it also hopes to show that the European Commission erred when it ruled in March 2004 that the company had abused its dominant market power to squash competition.
Determined to see the ruling thrown out by the court, the group has enlisted a small army of lawyers which it hopes will convince the 13 judges hearing the case that the EU competition watchdog ruling is ill-founded.
After the presiding judge, Dane Bo Verterdorf, opened the first session, one of Microsoft's lead lawyers, Belgian Jean-Francois Bellis, launched an offensive against the commission's line on its inclusion of Media Player in its widely-used Windows operating system, charging that regulators had made 'serious errors' in their ruling.
After a five-year investigation, the European Commission took its biggest competition decision in March 2004 when it found that Microsoft had broken EU law by using a quasi-monopoly in PC operating systems to thwart rivals.
In addition to fining Microsoft, the EU ordered Microsoft to sell a version of Windows unbundled from its Media Player software and to divulge information on its operating system needed by makers of rival products.
Separately from the trial, the commission has threatened Microsoft with fines of up to €2m a day if it finds in the coming months that the company is not doing enough to meet the demands laid out in the landmark 2004 ruling.
The trial holds huge stakes for both sides because a defeat for Microsoft would leave it little choice than to bow to the commission's demands while EU regulators could see their authority seriously compromised for the future if they were to lose. But it will not be until the end of this year at the very earliest that the judges will hand down their decision, which could then be appealed.
