A Dutch court has ordered Microsoft to give bankruptcy trustees appointed to Amsterdam Trade Bank access to the lender’s data.
The ATB is linked to Russia’s Alfa Group, and declared bankruptcy last month, after sanctions froze its Russian-based payment systems. Now court-appointed trustees cannot access the bank’s files.
Microsoft is facing whopping daily fines of A$14.5 million, up to 100 million euros (A$138 million) if it doesn’t play ball.
“We don’t have access to email boxes because they have been shut down by Microsoft”, trustee Job van Hooff said.
“They contain important information for us trustees to be able to conduct the investigation into the causes of the bankruptcy.
“There are also all kinds of documents, excel files, internal committee reports, minutes from management board meetings that were also to a large part stored in Microsoft’s environment.
“We’re evaluating potential solutions that would enable us to comply with both the court’s decision and sanctions imposed by the U.S., EU, and U.K.,” said Sarah O’Hare O’Neal, associate general counsel of global trade at Microsoft.
ATB banking data stored on Amazon servers has already been released to the trustees.
