THE European Commission’s bitter feud with Microsoft escalated yesterday when the software giant was threatened with fines of up to €2 million (£1.36 million) a day for not fully complying with an antitrust ruling.

The decision to raise the stakes against Microsoft reflects a determination within the Commission to use new powers granted to it last year to police the European Union’s competition rules.

While the Brussels executive has already fined the Government of Greece for ignoring a judgment from the European Court of Justice, this is the first time it is preparing to impose a similar penalty on a company.

Neelie Kroes, the Competition Commissioner, said: “I have given Microsoft every opportunity to comply with its obligations. However, I have been left with no alternative other than to proceed via the formal route to ensure Microsoft’s compliance.”

The American multinational hit back, accusing the Commission of imposing extra demands and changing the rules. Microsoft said that it was committed to meeting its legal obligations.

Brad Smith, a Microsoft senior vice-president, said: “In total, we have now responded to more than 100 requests from the Commission. We continue working quickly to meet the Commission’s new and changing demands. Yet every time we make a change, we find the Commission moves the goalpost and demands another change.”

The Commission has given Microsoft until January 25 to take measures to prevent further abuse of its dominant position and to provide interface information to allow its competitors’ group servers to work with its Windows operating system.

If it fails to do so, the fine will kick in immediately and be backdated to December 15 — the deadline that the Commission had originally set for compliance in a letter sent to the company in early November. Ultimately, the financial penalty could be as high as £2.8 million a day, equivalent to the 5 per cent of global turnover ceiling that EU rules allow.

Under the terms of the Commission decision against Microsoft in March last year, the company must provide complete and accurate interoperability information to its rivals to enable them to operate its software, and to do so on reasonable terms.

However, Neil Barrett, a computer science expert monitoring the company’s behaviour on behalf of the Commission, has issued a scathing report on the quality of the information the American multinational is offering its competitors.

“Any programmer seeking to use the technical documentation for a real development exercise would be wholly unable to proceed on the basis of the documentation,” he said.

Microsoft will fight any moves to impose a daily fine.

WHAT’S IT WORTH?

£1.5 million is equivalent to the retail price of 7,145 Xbox 360 consoles or 8,571 copies of the standalone Windows XP software.

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