Compliance Toolkit

There's something about Mario

Tags:
Mario Monti

Evan Hansen CNET News

Published: 24 Mar 2004 15:30 GMT

When European regulators derailed the General Electric-Honeywell merger three years ago, American investment bankers joked that they'd found a new bogeyman: Mario Monti, the region's top antitrust enforcer.

The jab is old, but it's regained resonance in some quarters this week, after the European Commission released long-awaited findings that Microsoft abused its "dominant position" in software and ordered the company to make significant changes to its Windows operating system in Europe.

That ruling could eventually set an important precedent for the software industry, if it survives a Microsoft appeal. But it has instantly cemented Monti's legacy as an aggressive antitrust enforcer, legal experts said, one who is able to learn from past mistakes and to persist in making risky calls, despite some sharp rebukes.

"He's a very tough enforcer, and he certainly made the EU directorate a force to be contended with," said Stan Gorinson, a partner with Kilpatrick Stockton in Washington, DC, and a former high-level regulator with the US Department of Justice.

People who have represented clients in proceedings before the EC describe Monti as quiet and professorial, in stark contrast to boisterous Microsoft chief executive Steven Ballmer. The two recently sat across from each other in failed one-on-one talks aimed at brokering a last-minute settlement in the case. But these same people add that Monti has deep reserves of willpower that have carried him through the controversies of his administration without his losing his convictions.

"Monti is not the type to bow down to any verbal aggression," one European antitrust attorney said. "He may have an academic exterior, but there's steel inside."

Appointed to head the Commission's Competition Division in 1999, Monti has presided over a tumultuous period in European antitrust law. On his watch, an appeals court for the first time in history overturned the recommendations of the commission in a merger review -- not once, but three times. Although two of those cases were decided by his predecessor, Monti bore the brunt of the ensuing criticism of the division. In addition, a fourth appeal pending in the GE-Honeywell case could add to his tally of reversals.

The 61-year-old former economics professor was born in Varese, a town in northern Italy. A banker's son, he studied at Bocconi University and did graduate work at Yale before returning to Bocconi in 1965 to teach economics.

Monti's star began rising in the European economic and political scene in 1985, when he joined the commission's macroeconomic policy group. He later served on the committee charged with getting Italy ready for the single European market. His five-year term as Competition Commissioner is set to expire in September, although no successor has yet been publicly named. According to one attorney familiar with the matter, Monti could be asked to accept a second term.

Monti took over as EU competition commissioner from Karl Van Miert and quickly established himself as an aggressive antitrust enforcer. While Van Miert blocked just 10 mergers during his tenure -- and famously delayed Boeing's merger with McDonnell-Douglas -- Monti moved against three deals in his first year.

Of those actions, his decision to block the proposed combination of British travel companies Airtours and First Choice Holidays was overturned in 2002 by the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. That ruling has opened the European Commission to an unprecedented claim for damages.

Other deals Monti blocked include Sprint's proposed merger with MCI -- a combination that was also disallowed by US regulators. Applying new rules of market concentration, he also prevented Time Warner from acquiring UK-based music label EMI.