State Department questions EU's Microsoft ruling
Concern grows in Washington over European regulators' decision to levy harsh penalties and a $613 million fine on the software giant.
The quiet protest from the Bush administration comes as concern is growing on Capitol Hill over the European Commission's penalties, which came after the Justice Department agreed to a consent decree that includes ongoing federal court oversight of Microsoft's business practices.
U.S. politicians gave at least six speeches over a three-day period last week on the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives, all of which condemned European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti's ruling that Microsoft violated antitrust laws and would have to unbundle Media Player from Windows.
"In imposing this anticonsumer, anti-innovation penalty, the commission has blatantly undercut the settlement that was so carefully and painstakingly crafted with Microsoft by the U.S. Department of Justice and several state antitrust authorities. The commission's complete indifference to the negative impact of its ruling on American jobs, American consumers and the U.S. economy, and its total disregard of the Department of Justice, are intolerable."
Another point of contention is that U.S. officials sometimes view Europeans as unabashed fans of big government. In November 2001, William Kolasky, deputy assistant attorney general at the time, complained in a speech that the "European Union comes from a more statist tradition that places greater confidence in the utility of governmental intervention in markets."
Ten members of the House International Relations Committee--five Democrats and five Republicans--have written a letter to Monti protesting the sanctions on Microsoft. They claimed the decision violated the spirit of a 1991 "comity agreement" the Clinton administration renewed in 1998, which generally says that the United States should take the lead in overseeing U.S. companies.