European Union IBM competition cases

In its initial reaction to the EC's decision, IBM said that the allegations had been brought forward by "satellite proxies" of rival Microsoft. (Microsoft was the subject of a series of EU antitrust cases.) IBM also noted that the company holds numerous U.S. patents (some of which have also been filed in Europe) on its mainframe hardware technologies to protect its ongoing billions of dollars in new mainframe technology investments, that the vendors did not seek and did not pay for licenses to those patents, and that IBM should not be required to support infringement of its own patents.

Resolution

After losing related court cases in the U.S. against IBM, T3 and Neon withdrew their European Commission complaints in August, 2011. TurboHercules also withdrew its complaint. On September 20, 2011, the European Commission closed its investigation without action into alleged operating system and hardware tying. Separately, IBM agreed to provide mainframe spare parts and certain technical information for five years to maintenance firms. The Commission provisionally approved of IBM's proposed solution and, after a comment period, issued final approval in December, 2011.