The Commission has chosen Professor Neil Barrett, a computer security specialist from Cranfield University in the UK, as its trustee in the Microsoft anti-trust case. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was told of the decision when he visited Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes on 4 October 2005.
Under the Commission's decision of March 2004, Mr. Barrett will have to report to the Commission on whether and how the software maker is complying with the ruling obliging it to sell a version of its Windows XP operating system without its Media Player software and to provide competitors on the server market with protocol information. Among other things, his task will be to monitor whether Microsoft markets the stripped-down Windows version just as well as the full version and whether the conditions for disclosing the protocol information are fair.
The Commission picked Professor Barrett from a list of possible trustees provided by Microsoft. He will be paid by Microsoft, but the Commission can end his mandate should it not consider him trustworthy any more. "The appointment of a trustee is a usual procedure in merger cases," DG Competition spokesman Jonathan Todd told EurActiv. "But I think it is the first time we are doing it in an Article 82 case," Mr Todd said, referring to cases which involve an alleged abuse of dominant market power under the EC treaty. When asked whether the Commission considered using this procedure more often, Mr Todd said he doubts "whether there will ever be another case quite like this one". Microsoft would not comment on the appointment except to say that the company looks forward to co-operating with Professor Barrett.
