Row over EU official considering Microsoft job
07.09.2006 - 10:00 CET | By Helena Spongenberg
An EU official set to head the European Commission's antitrust case
against Microsoft is instead considering a job with a consultancy that
counts Microsoft as one of its major clients.
Frenchman Henri Piffaut was this week chosen to take over in October
as head of the unit handling the Microsoft antitrust case and other
high profile technology cases, sources told Reuters.
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rce=&dest=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.www.gov.tw%2FUN%2F>
But Mr Piffaut has also asked for leave from the commission after
being offered a senior role at LECG – a global economic consultancy
that advises Microsoft on antitrust issues and which goes with the
motto "the expert inside".
"A request for leave on personal grounds has been made [by Mr Piffaut]
but no decision has yet been made on that request," commission
spokesman Jonathan Todd said.
He also added that officials who left the commission or took personal
leave must agree to strict measures so that there is no conflict of
interest in their work.
Managing director of LECG's Brussels office, Atilano Jorge Padilla,
confirmed to the Times that he was trying to hire Mr Piffaut, but that
it was for his expertise in merger economics rather than anti-trust
work.
Mr Piffaut would lead the economists in the Brussels office, and help
hire additional staff, Mr Padilla said.
The EU executive office has been locked in a dispute with Microsoft
for years over its widely used operating system Windows, with the
commission accusing the firm of obstructing rival software firms like
Adobe and IBM from running software through Windows.
Brussels fined in March 2004 the software giant nearly EUR500 million
and another EUR281 million in July this year for ignoring the first
order.
*If you can't beat them, join them*
The case is similar to a 2002 case when EU official Detlef Eckert, who
worked as a head of unit and had interviewed a number of Microsoft
rivals who complained about the software giant's behaviour, was
allowed to work for Microsoft itself.
Last spring, environmental group Greenpeace addressed four cases of
"revolving doors" between the commission and the chemicals industry
together with its lobby groups.
In its report on the working of the EU chemicals law REACH, Greenpeace
pointed out that people working in the commission cross the border to
the industry or its lobby groups and vice versa.
--
Aleksandra Kordecka
Chemicals Campaigner
Friends of the Earth Europe
Rue Blanche 15, B-1050 Brussels
t: +32 2 542 61 08 ; m: +32 498 505 165
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