The European Commission today gave a clear signal it intends to hit Microsoft with a second salvo of massive financial penalties after the company breached European antitrust laws.

Asked whether Microsoft would be fined for failing to share crucial technical information with competitors, the EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said she could see no alternative.

"I couldn’t imagine another way," she said ahead of a meeting next week of European regulators at which the details of the penalty will be decided.

The world's largest software company faces fines of up to €2 million (£1.4m) a day - backdated to December 15 - following an EU anti-competition ruling in 2004.

In total the fines could reach as much as €420 million.

The confrontation between Europe's competition watchdog and the world's largest software developer has already seen Microsoft fined a record €497 million after the company was found to have illegally combined its Windows Media Player product with its Windows operating system, a move the EC said stifled competition.

The EU also ordered Microsoft to share the blueprints of its Windows operating system, which accounts for around 90 per cent of the market, to allow rivals to build applications that work smoothly with it.

Microsoft has since been accused by the EC of delaying the release of the data, which runs to some 12,000 documents.

Appealing the decision earlier this year, Microsoft accused the EC of moving to "handicap in perpetuity" its business by forcing it to hand over trade secrets.

Microsoft, which has been involved in a string of similar competition cases around the globe, has also protested that it is working to fix problems with the technical information it has been ordered to hand over.

It claims it has 300 people working on the task and that six of seven instalments have so far been delivered.

"Microsoft is dedicating massive resources to meet the aggressive schedule and high-quality standards set by the trustee and the Commission in this process," it said in a statement earlier this week.

"Our engineers are working around the clock to meet the seventh and final delivery date for this project scheduled for July 18."

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal