[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 12 (Thursday, February 10, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S605]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EUROPEAN UNION ANTITRUST INVESTIGATION

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, it was just last week that I came to the 
floor of the Senate to share a legal brief outlining the weakness of 
the Department of Justice's case against Microsoft. But I repeated at 
that time a thought I have expressed several times on the floor of the 
Senate that perhaps the most long-lasting effect of this ill-begotten 
lawsuit would be on the U.S. international competitiveness and our 
place in the world that is changing so rapidly due to the development 
of both software and hardware in the computer industry and in the 
related high-tech fields. Yesterday, the other shoe dropped. The 
European Union announced an antitrust investigation against Microsoft, 
something, as I say, that I have been predicting for more than a year.
  When the Department of Justice was asked about it, it said this 
action took them by surprise. I don't know why we should be surprised 
that the European Union is very much interested in restricting access 
of U.S. goods and services in Europe, whether they are software, 
airplanes, bananas, or a wide range of other goods and services, or why 
the Department of Justice should be surprised that the European Union 
investigates and reflects its own actions in a matter of this sort. In 
fact, the report of this lawsuit points out that it is easier to bring 
an antitrust case in Europe than it is in the United States.
  We have simply opened up to European competitors the opportunity to 
cripple or destroy one of the most innovative and progressive of all 
U.S. corporations, one that bears a very significant share of the 
credit for the magnificent performance of our economy and for the 
changes in our lives.
  Again, as is the case with the Microsoft action by the U.S. 
Department of Justice, this European investigation seems to have been 
sparked by an American competitor, even more perhaps than the European 
authorities themselves. But nothing but ill can come from 
investigations or actions of this sort.
  This industry and our economy has grown because it is highly 
innovative, highly competitive, and very rapidly changing. Neither our 
antitrust laws nor European antitrust laws fit that very well--the 
Europeans probably less than our own, as they represent views in an 
economy that has been for generations far more stagnant than our own.
  In any event, Mr. President, I regret to have to bring this matter to 
your attention and to the attention of my colleagues. But I have feared 
exactly this for more than a year. I fear that it will breed other 
copycat actions in other parts of the world that would also like to 
grab for free the innovations and progress that have meant so much to 
the United States and that are so important in reducing what is now the 
largest bilateral trade deficit in our history or in the world. This is 
bad news. But it is bad news that is brought upon us largely by the 
ill-advised and ill-founded actions against Microsoft by our own U.S. 
Department of Justice.

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