Europe’s antitrust regulators have opened a probe into a joint venture between two of the world’s three largest iron ore producers, the European Commission said in a statement today.

The Commission’s competition arm is investigating a deal inked last month between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton to combine iron ore assets in Western Australia. Authorities are focusing on how the deal affects prices in the market for iron ore transported by sea, according to the agency’s statement.

Iron ore is is used to produce steel.

BHP abandoned its 2008 hostile bid for Rio Tinto amidst falling commodity prices and regulatory hurdles. Regulators in Brussels were closely examining that deal.

A European steel industry group, Eurofer, said the new joint venture would have the same impact on the market as a full merger, according to the Associated Press.

The group said BHP and Rio Tinto could share information that would affect “industry negotiations to set benchmark prices and volumes,” the AP reported.

The European Commission today announced it had dropped an antitrust case against the software maker after it agreed to give consumers easier access to rival Web browsers.

The competition regulator of the European Union had been investigating Microsoft since 2007 over the matter.

The maker of Windows said it would offer an update to users who chose its Explorer browser through a default setting on the computer operating system software. The update next year will allow those users to select other browsers including those made by Google, Apple and Mozilla.

Microsoft has agreed to offer a Windows Update that includes a “Choice Screen” which will allow users to choose their preferred browser. In addition, computer manufacturers will be able to install browsers other than Internet Explorer and set one of those as the default browser. The agreement covers the 27 member countries of the European Union and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

The Norwegian maker of the Opera browser had complained to the commission in 2007 that Microsoft used its near-monopoly position in the PC-operating system market to stymie competition among browsers.

In a statement, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use. Such choice will not only serve to improve people’s experience of the Internet now but also act as an incentive for web browser companies to innovate and offer people better browsers in the future.”

The commission previously had fined Microsoft €1.68 billion, or $2.44 billion, for business practices related to the markets for back-end sever software software and media players.

Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Microsoft, on Wednesday released the following statement:

“We are pleased with today’s decision by the European Commission, which approves a final resolution of several longstanding competition law issues in Europe. We look forward to building on the dialogue and trust that has been established between Microsoft and the Commission and to extending our industry leadership on interoperability.

Today’s resolution follows years of intensive examination by the European Commission of competition in computer software. The measures approved today reflect multiple rounds of input from industry participants relating to competition in Web browser software and interoperability between various Microsoft products and competing products.

The Web browser measures cover the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows for users in Europe—specifically the region known as the European Economic Area, which includes 30 nations. Under today’s resolution, Microsoft commits that PC manufacturers and users will continue to be able to install any browser on top of Windows, to make any browser the default browser on new PCs, and to turn access to Internet Explorer on or off. In addition, Microsoft will send a “browser choice� screen to Windows users who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser. This browser choice screen will present a list of browsers, making it easy for users to install any one of them. It will be provided both to users of new computers and to the installed base of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 computers in Europe where Internet Explorer is set as the default browser.

The second measure is a “public undertaking� that covers interoperability with Microsoft’s products—the way our high-share products work with non-Microsoft technologies. This applies to an important set of Microsoft’s products—our Windows, Windows Server, Office, Exchange, and SharePoint products. We believe it represents the most comprehensive commitment to the promotion of interoperability in the history of the software industry. Under this undertaking, Microsoft will ensure that developers throughout the industry, including in the open source community, will have access to technical documentation to assist them in building products that work well with Microsoft products. Microsoft will also support certain industry standards in its products and fully document how these standards are supported. Microsoft will make available legally-binding warranties that will be offered to third parties.

Our interoperability undertaking reflects the policy outlined by the European Commission in a major policy speech given by Commissioner Neelie Kroes in June 2008. At that time, the Commissioner said that companies offering high-share software products should be required to (i) disclose technical specifications to enable interoperability; (ii) ensure that competitors can access complete and accurate information and have a remedy if not; and (iii) ensure that the technical specifications are available at fair royalty rates, based on the inherent value of the technology disclosed. Our interoperability undertaking, developed through extensive consultation, implements this approach in full.

As we’ve said before, we are embarking on a path that will require significant change within Microsoft. Nevertheless, we believe that these are important steps that resolve these competition law concerns.

This is an important day and a major step forward, and we look forward to building a new foundation for the future in Europe.”

A public spat between American and European antitrust regulators continued for a third day, as the European Union’s Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told Dow Jones it was unusual for the Justice Department to comment on a pending EU investigation.

“It isn’t normal [practice] to publish a statement from colleagues in Washington,” Kroes told the newswire.

Neelie Kroes

The dispute involves Oracle Corporation’s proposed $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc.

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division cleared the deal earlier this year, but the European Commission issued a set of objections this week over concerns the deal would decrease competition in the database software industry. DOJ then issued a statement taking issue with the EC’s decision.

The Antitrust Division is still in touch with its European counterparts on the Oracle investigation, according to a source at the Justice Department.

DOJ has issued similar statements in the past that highlight rifts between the two antitrust regulators.

After a European court affirmed in 2007 the Commission’s $613 million fine (according to the exchange rate at the time) on Microsoft, then Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett criticized the court’s decision and said it might have the effect of “chilling innovation and discouraging competition.”

And in 2001, Antitrust head Charles James blasted Brussels-based regulators  after they blocked General Electric’s bid for Honeywell International: “Clear and longstanding U.S. antitrust policy holds that the antitrust laws protect competition, not competitors. Today’s EU decision reflects a significant point of divergence,” he said.

Antitrust officials in the Bush administration, including Barnett and James, often clashed with European regulators. When current Antitrust head Christine Varney took over, she withdrew a controversial Bush-era report on the conduct of individual firms outside the merger context, and pledged to work more closely with her European counterparts.

In a September speech at Fordham University, Varney stressed the need for cooperation between the two agencies. “In this context of a global economy, divergence in substantive rules and procedural approaches poses significant difficulties for members of the business community,” Varney said, according to a Dow Jones report.

Which makes the current dispute all the more surprising.

In the context of previous statements, this week’s release about Oracle is more sugar-coated. “At this point in its process, it appears that the EC holds a different view,” said Antitrust deputy Molly Boast. “We remain hopeful that the parties and the EC will reach a speedy resolution that benefits consumers in the Commission’s jurisdiction.”

The heart of the dispute involves different government approaches to free, or open-source, software. Sun owns MySQL, an open source database that programmers can access and build on for free.

Oracle argues that while its databases are used to manage complex back office functions like accounting and payroll processing at the largest companies, MySQL is used for quick web-based operations, like Google searches, and user interactions on social-networking sites like Facebook.

Not only do the two databases cater to different markets, Oracle argues, but the free nature of the software ensures that developers will continue to build on existing versions of MySQL. The Justice Department agreed.

Critics of the deal contend the markets are converging, particularly in Europe where companies turn to open source technology more often. MySQL is starting to compete in the market for the highest end databases, critics argue, and Oracle will stop providing the funding MySQL needs to remain competitive.

“Major customers in the enterprise sector already use MySQL where they previously used Oracle’s product,” said Florian Mueller, an advisor to MySQL’s creator, Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius, who has been pushing the EC to investigate the deal. ”All of this has a certain competitive impact.”

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission share jurisdiction over antitrust, and by mutual agreement, investigations of Intel’s dominance of the computer chip market are before the FTC. Still, given Antitrust Division chief Christine Varney’s speeches earlier this week heralding a return to vigorous competition enforcement, it’s worth noting this story in the Recorder.

The legal publication says the European Commission and the FTC are coordinating closely on Intel. The commission, the EU’s executive arm, announced a $1.45 billion (EUR $1.06 billion) fine against Intel on Wednesday for using rebates to discourage computer makers from purchasing chips made by rival Advanced Micro Devices.

“We believe the types of conduct that appear to have been found unlawful by the European Commission would also be unlawful under U.S. antitrust laws,” David Beddow, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers’ Washington, D.C., office, told the Recorder. The Recorder also quotes the EU’s competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, as speaking hopefully about FTC-EU coordination.

Read the story here.