By Seo Jee-yeon
Staff Reporter

The nation’s anti-trust regulator said Wednesday it plans to make a final ruling on Microsoft’s allegedly unfair business practices in Korea at a commissioners’ meeting in June.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) confirmed it gave the world’s largest software giant a two-month deadline for a final appeal to its report on the matter, which was sent to Microsoft in March.

We will hold the commissioners’ meeting soon after receiving the Microsoft’s position on the report,” a FTC official said.

Microsoft also confirmed in a statement it is in the process of preparing its response to the report.

Both the FTC and Microsoft, however, declined to comment on the content of the report, which could become a guideline for the final ruling.

Everything has not been decided before the commissioners’ meeting,” the official said.

The U.S. software giant kept stressing the legitimacy of its business acts in Korea.

Microsoft believes that its actions have been entirely consistent with the Korea’s Fair Trade Act and looks forward to presenting its views to the FTC commissioners,” the Microsoft statement said.

The FTC has conducted a probe into Microsoft for the past few years, as two companies filed a complaint against the business practices of the U.S. software company in Korea in 2001 and 2004.

First, Korean Internet portal Daum Communications lodged a complaint with the FTC in September 2001, Microsoft breached antitrust laws by selling a version of the Windows system that incorporated Microsoft’s instant messaging software.

Daum, which has its own messaging service, claimed Microsoft excluded rivals from Internet messenger markets by using its dominant market position.

In 2004, RealNetworks, a U.S. maker of audiovisual software, also filed a complaint to the FTC against Microsoft, claiming that Microsoft violates fair business practices in Korea by bundling the Media Player audio-visual software and Media Server programs with its operating system.

Microsoft has said the allegations raised against it were inaccurate, contending that it merely provides software that gives users the best possible service.

Microsoft’s ongoing improvement of its products is consistent with industry practice and of great value to Korean consumers,” the statement said.

It is also consistent with Microsoft’s commitment to promote the development of the information technology industry in Korea through the creation of innovative and powerful tools for those that make and use information technology.”

jyseo@koreatimes.co.kr