Row over EU official considering Microsoft job
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.
Join EUobserver today
Get the EU news that really matters
Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
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 €500 million and another €281 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.