The company has promoted from within, handing the role to Erich Andersen who has been a part of Microsoft’s in-house legal team since 1995. Andersen replaces Horacio Gutierrez, who is remaining with the company, moving to Redmond, Washington to focus on intellectual property issues.
While Andersen will be responsible for all legal issues in EMEA, much of his time is likely to be spent sparring with the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, and her team. Microsoft is currently appealing the original March 2004 decision that it was in violation of the EU’s antitrust rules.
As well as that broad appeal against the decision, it is also appealing against the commission’s position that it should be forced to share interoperability information with open source software vendors, and against the recent implementation of fines for failing to comply with interoperability guidelines.
