US-based Cisco and Italy-based Messagenet--one of Skype’s internet communications competitors--filed an objection last week with the EU General Court in Kirchberg, claiming that the EU should have placed conditions on the transaction to prevent a monopoly from forming in video conferencing.

European competition authorities granted Microsoft permission to acquire Skype--based in Luxembourg City’s Rives de Clausen centre--last year. The US software giant was cleared to buy the internet calling provider from private equity firm Silver Lake Partners “because the deal would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it,” the European Commission had said in October.

Even though Microsoft has existing Internet communication products, the takeover is not expected to reduce competition because of rival offerings from Google in consumer markets and Cisco Systems in the corporate space, the office of European commissioner Joaquín Almunia explained last year.

The deal received approval from US competition authorities in June, and also passed scrutiny by regulators in Russia and Taiwan, among other countries.

Cisco hopes to have the current case put on a fast track and therefore be resolved within a year, Reuters news agency quoted the company as saying.

Nevertheless, the Luxembourg-based court rarely overturns European competition rulings. Cisco and Messagenet could appeal a negative decision to the European Court of Justice, based in the same Kirchberg judicial complex.

“The Commission takes notes that Cisco filed an application for annulment of the Commission's decision of 7 October 2011 under the Merger Regulation approving the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft,” a spokeswoman for Joaquín Almunia, the competition commissioner, told Delano on Monday. She stated that “the Commission will defend the decision in court.”

“The European Commission conducted a thorough investigation of the acquisition, in which Cisco actively participated, and approved the deal in a 36-page decision without any conditions,” a Microsoft spokesman told Delano. “We’re confident the Commission’s decision will stand up on appeal.”

A spokeswoman for Cisco did not return Delano’s message requesting comment.