Opera won the first round of the antitrust process against IE

“Yesterday, Microsoft received an official message from the Competition Council at the European Commission. It reports the preliminary view of the Committee’s leadership that the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows since 1996 has violated European competition laws. The fact that a US court in 2002 recognized the inclusion of IE in Windows as legal does not make this fact relevant to European law, ”such a truly sensational message was published on January 16 by Microsoft on its website.



Microsoft does not give any information what kind of legal proceedings and who initiated it. Much more details we find in an interview with the Director of Opera, Jon von Techner, as well as in the comments of the European Commission lawyers .



As it was possible to assume, the preliminary decision of the European Commission was based on the results of the consideration of the complaint from the company Opera, which we reported more than a year ago . It can be stated that the small Norwegian company won the first round of the antitrust process against Microsoft.

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Now, Microsoft has eight weeks to send a formal response to the European Commission or to request the start of a hearing before the European Commission makes a final decision.