By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -U.S. tech giant Microsoft looks set to avoid a French antitrust investigation into its search operations because regulators are planning to dismiss a complaint by Qwant, the French rival search engine said on Wednesday.
Qwant, which has historically relied on Microsoft’s Bing platform to deliver search and news results, took a grievance against Microsoft’s search practices to the French regulator earlier this year. It said on Wednesday it may challenge the decision to reject its case in court or take it to other authorities.
Qwant had asked the watchdog to take interim action against Microsoft while it decided if there was sufficient grounds for an investigation.
Qwant Chief Executive Olivier Abecassis said the French authority’s investigators at a June closed-door hearing issued a recommendation to reject the company’s request for an injunction and complaint.
“In that case we will be left with no other option but to pursue all available legal avenues to protect our business from Microsoft’s egregious abuse, to defend our rights, and to seek compensation,” he said.
The French regulator declined to comment. It is expected to issue its decision in the next two weeks, though the timing may still change, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Microsoft said the Qwant complaint lacks merit.
“The complaint alleges harm to competition in the market for search, which is dominated by Google,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Qwant alleged Microsoft imposes exclusivity restrictions on Qwant in search results and search advertising, hampering the latter’s ability to develop its own search engine, and also alleged it favours itself in allocating search advertising, according to the French company.
Microsoft is a major player in the search-engine syndication sector, where it provides search results to smaller European rivals such as Qwant, Ecosia, DuckDuckGo and Lilo.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
