Microsoft may be banned from EU area public contracts

[Game_boy]

Sources:

http://www.heide-ruehle.de/heide/fe/pub/de/dct/555

http://www.heide-ruehle.de/heide2007/media/doc/1207747685964.pdf

News story that reports on above:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/10/member-eu-parliament-asks

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My summary:

The EU has conditions as to whether a company can be selected for government procurement contracts. The second link above refers to an official question put forward by a Member of European Parliament, an EU administrative body, as to whether Microsoft meets these conditions. The relevant conditions are that:

"Pursuant to... [citations omitted], candidates or tenderers shall be excluded from participation in procurement procedures if: b) they have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of res judicata; c) they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify;"

The EU had found previously that Microsoft was guilty of violating competition law (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_antitrust_case) and is currently investigating Microsoft on several other cases,including misuse of dominant position in relation to Internet Explorer, whether they unfgairly influencied the vote on approving OOXML as an ISO standard and whether they have engaged in anticompetitive contracts with PC OEMs. They have also fined Microsoft on two occasions in relation to these and other cases.

If these judgements count as violating the conditions necessary to be selected for government procurement contracts, then technically Microsoft should not be allowed to do so.

This would likely mean that Microsoft would be banned from, e.g. supplying software such as Windows to schools and libraries or operating government databases, in the EU area.