Russian antitrust can spend six months to decide on Microsoft guilt

MOSCOW, Nov 16 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service may need six months to decide on a case against U.S. giant Microsoft, which is suspected of abusing its dominant position on the antivirus market, the authority’s Director Igor Artemyev told reporters onWednesday.

The antimonopoly service is still studying the case, and duration of the process depends on how many materials the plaintiff, local antivirus producer Kaspersky Lab, will submit, Artemyev said.

The watchdog opened the case against Microsoft on November 10 after Kaspersky Lab’s complaint that Microsoft had cut the compatibility adaptation time of antivirus software of third-party developers for operating system Windows 10 to six calendar days from two months.

The service’s Deputy Director Anatoly Golomolzin said then that Microsoft develops antivirus software Windows Defender, which turns on automatically, if a third-party program fails to adapt to Windows 10. Such operations lead to groundless advantages of Microsoft on the software market, he said.

Microsoft insisted that it sticks to the competition law.

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