(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today denounced the European Commission (EC) continued offensive against Microsoft for failing to comply with an earlier anti-competition ruling.  A $357 million fine has been issued despite an agreed upon deadline of July 18^th for the company to submit its final release of information.  

“The EC’s continued attack on Microsoft is yet another example of forcing a successful corporation to help its competitors who can’t succeed in the marketplace on their own,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said. 

In March 2004, the EC issued a decision requiring Microsoft to hand over valuable intellectual property to its competitors, unbundle its software, and pay a $613 million fine.  Although the European Court of First Instance recognized that the merits of the case favored Microsoft, the company was still forced to comply with the EC’s order by creating two versions of the Windows operating systems, one with its music and video player program, Media Player, and one without.  Microsoft also released server system code to competitors.  In October of 2005, Microsoft came to an agreement with its last big competitor in the EC anti-trust case.  The settlement included a $460 million cash payment to RealNetworks and greater access to some Windows Media technologies and ended all their anti-trust disputes worldwide. 

"The EC is skewering the marketplace with burdensome regulations, hurting taxpayers with costly litigation, stifling innovation, and threatening intellectual property rights,” Schatz continued.  “In the U.S., the courts reached a fair agreement with Microsoft that did not set overbearing restrictions on future technology.  The EC’s actions will have global ramifications for the economy and for taxpayers.”

Competitors hoping to gain from the prosecution of Microsoft have complained that the unbundled version has technical problems that make it less functional when used with other players.  But Microsoft had predicted that stripping Media Player files from its operating system to conform with EC directives would cause problems for rival players. 

“The protection of intellectual property rights has become increasingly more important to our long-term prosperity,” Schatz concluded.  “In the EU, the right to benefit from one’s innovations has been in jeopardy for some time and now the basic underpinning of American innovation is under attack by European technocrats.” 

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.