Microsoft Corp got a bit of relief from the legal onslaught facing it over the coming months and years with the news that the European Union will not launch its own investigation of the company along the same lines as that being pursued by the US Department of Justice and 20 states. European competition commissioner Karl Van Miert said no parallel investigation will be launched as the impact of the current case will be felt mainly in the US market. Next week the EU will sign a deal with the US government whereby European regulators will let their US counterparts conduct investigations where the effect will be felt primarily in the US, and vice versa, reports Bloomberg. Anyhow, the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission and Microsoft have already had a few run-ins, which the EU probably considers enough for now. Microsoft has already let European internet service providers offer other browsers besides Internet Explorer as a way of offsetting any antitrust probe and perhaps more importantly, the EC freed Santa Cruz Operation Inc (SCO) from its obligation to pay Microsoft $15 for each copy of Unix it sold in November last year. The EC agreed that the clause in SCO’s contract, dating back to a 1988 deal Microsoft struck with AT&T Corp, the original developer of Unix, constituted an infringement of European competition law and Redmond dropped it immediately (CI No 3,297).
