EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes expressed hope yesterday that Microsoft will meet anti-trust sanctions, saying that was her main focus even as the company challenges Brussels in court.

A 13-judge panel of the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg opens five days of hearings on Monday to determine if the European Commission was right to rule in 2004 that Microsoft abused a near monopoly in its Windows operating system.

"Of course I am interested in the court case. But I am most interested in the results of the promise of Microsoft," she told reporters after a meeting of EU competitiveness ministers.

The commission says Microsoft has not complied with one of the sanctions that the commission imposed in its decision: to give some business rivals more information about its Windows software so they can make software that runs more smoothly with it.

The commission issued a charge sheet late last year saying that Microsoft had failed to carry out the sanction. "So normally spoken, before the end of spring we can come hopefully to a positive conclusion," she told reporters.