15 April 2008 - Greens in the European Parliament have raised concerns about the legality of allowing computer giant Microsoft to bid for public contracts, suggesting that its tainted record of anti-competitive practises and subsequent court-imposed fines may place it in breach of EU law.

Dr Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the South East, said:

“In our written enquiry to the European Commission, the Greens ask whether Microsoft should be excluded from current or future public procurement procedures.

“Article 93 of the EU’s Financial Regulations (1) stipulates that bidders who are guilty of serious misconduct and have been convicted by the courts should be excluded from procurement procedures. The Commission recently fined Microsoft a record figure of 899 million euros for its ‘abuse of dominant market position’. This is just one of a series of several decisions against the company since 2004.

"The European Court of Justice established last year that Microsoft had hampered innovation and choice to the disadvantage of EU consumers. It was proven that, in many cases, users were pushed towards expensive Microsoft networks, without the choice of more suitable products from competitors."

The software giant has, through its anti-competitive behaviour, limited the software market to the detriment of both competitors and consumers. To date, Microsoft has had to pay 1.7 billion euros in fines for its actions.

Dr Lucas continued: “Article 45 of the EU procurement directive (2) stipulates that companies which have legal judgments against them can be excluded from the award of public contracts - whether it concerns new software for a small town library or the setting up of a database for a whole regional office.

“I would therefore like to know whether or not the Commission will exclude Microsoft from public procurement and use alternative companies to fulfil future technology contracts."

ENDS

1) Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities

2) Directive of the EP and Council 2004/18/EC