The European Union's antitrust division on Friday rejected Microsoft Corp.'s allegations that the Competition Commission colluded with rivals.

To back up its position, the commission took a page from Microsoft's playbook, and released several documents outlining the job of its trustee, Neil Barrett, who is in charge of overseeing the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's compliance with a 2004 antitrust ruling.

Earlier this month, Microsoft had called into question Barrett's impartiality and said that he had been in contact with the company's rivals.

Not so, the EU argued.

"The Trustee's contacts with [rival companies] are part of his obligation...and not in any way a form of inappropriate collusion as has been suggested," the commission said in a statement.

The commission cited specific sections of the March 2004 decision against Microsoft to back up its description of Barrett's role in forcing the company to toe the line.

"[The] Decision makes clear that the Trustee, under the supervision of the Commission, has to monitor Microsoft's compliance on his own initiative," the statement went on. "In order to fulfill that proactive role and to form his own, impartial, view on complex technical questions, the Trustee must be in a position to gather views on compliance issues through contacts not only with Microsoft engineers, but also with potential beneficiaries of the remedy."