Airbus has expressed concern about the implications of
part of the EC's antitrust decision against Microsoft and has filed
a petition with the court handling the appeal.
"Airbus is seeking a clarification of one of the points raised
in the [EC] decision related to market regulation," a spokeswoman
for the company said, although she emphasised that Airbus was not
taking sides.
A report published in the online edition of The Wall Street
Journal on Friday (17 September) said that Airbus feared that the
EC ruling could affect the way it makes planes by thwarting its
choice of providers for components such as seats and galleys.
Earlier this year the commission found Microsoft guilty of
improperly using its dominance in PC operating systems to boost its
hand in other markets. Microsoft is appealing the decision.
As part of the appeal process, interested third parties are
allowed to intervene and question points of law, according to
Anthony Woolich, an antitrust layer with legal firm Lawrence
Graham.
"It is very important to get support to show that it is not just
the [appealing] party's personal commercial interest at stake, that
there is a wider point of principal," Woolich said.
That Microsoft should try to get third parties to intervene is
of little surprise, given the magnitude of the case, Woolich
added.
Microsoft has approached Airbus rival Boeing and encouraged it
to intervene also, the The Wall Street Journal reported.
In its antitrust ruling, the EC ordered Microsoft to pay a €497m
(£338m) fine and gave it 90 days to begin selling a version of
Windows in Europe without its Media Player software. It also gave
the company 120 days to reveal enough Windows source code to allow
rivals to build competing server software that works properly with
Windows.
Microsoft filed its official appeal against the decision with
the EU's Court of First Instance (CFI) in June. A spokesman for the
court declined to give any details of the Airbus petition.
Although the EC decision is specific to Microsoft it creates
case law that could have a wider-ranging effect on how companies
deal with competition.
"If Microsoft can gain support from third parties who say that
customers are being adversely affected by the decision, that can be
very, very compelling," Woolich said.
The EC decision came after what was widely considered as a slap
on the wrist to Microsoft from US antitrust authorities.
Woolich warned, however, that the EU's antitrust case is far
from over. Appeals to the CFI often take one to two years, and its
decisions can be appealed to the European Court of Justice, he
said. Appeals to that court often take two to three years, he
added.
"Realistically it could be five years before this case is
settled and the technology would have moved on," Woolich said.
Scarlet Pruitt writes for IDG News Service