EC Drops the Full-time Monitoring of Microsoft

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It appears that Microsoft's long saga with the European Commission may be coming to a close of sorts. Apparently the EC has decided that due to Microsoft's more recent behavior and with third parties working with the respective national courts, full-time monitoring of Microsoft's compliance with the 2004 anti-trust measure is no longer necessary. Here is the full information from the EC release:


Antitrust: Commission adapts nature of monitoring of 2004 Microsoft Decision
The European Commission has adapted the nature of the technical assistance it receives to facilitate its monitoring of Microsoft's compliance with the Commission's 2004 Microsoft Decision (see IP/04/382 and MEMO/04/70). In light of changes in Microsoft’s behaviour, the increased opportunity for third parties to exercise their rights directly before national courts and experience gained since the adoption of the 2004 Decision, the Commission no longer requires a full time monitoring trustee to assess Microsoft’s compliance. In future, the Commission intends to rely on the ad hoc assistance of 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 Commission therefore 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 Commission nevertheless highly appreciates the excellent quality of the work that the former monitoring trustee has provided since 2005.