[Am-info] Microsoft Back in Court to Defend Antitrust Pact

[Erick Andrews]

Unless by some remote fortune, I won't hold a candle to it.

This is probably the last challenge to The Evil Empire for 
the foreseeable future.  Hey, we all tried.

-- Erick

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=3744221
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Mon November 3, 2003 11:57 AM ET (Page 1 of 2) WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Attorneys for Microsoft Corp.  head back to federal
court on Tuesday to defend a landmark antitrust settlement from
a last-ditch challenge from Massachusetts' attorney general and
other critics.

The two sides will square off before a panel of judges in the
U.S.  Court of Appeals for the D.C.  Circuit, with critics of
the settlement arguing it should be overturned and stricter
sanctions imposed on the world's largest software maker.

"It (the settlement) fails to stop Microsoft's illegal conduct
and does nothing to restore competition to the monopolized
market or to prevent Microsoft from engaging in similar means to
the same unlawful end," Massachusetts AG Thomas Reilly said in a
brief filed over the summer.

Microsoft will likely counter that the dissenters are extremists
out of step with the courts, the Justice Department and 20 other
states, all of whom have endorsed the settlement.

"Only Massachusetts continues to pursue different relief that
would benefit certain of Microsoft's competitors, but not
consumers," Microsoft said in a reply brief.

Microsoft argued successfully during last year's remedy hearings
that more stringent sanctions would benefit only rivals like
Oracle Corp.  and Sun Microsystems, while hurting consumers.

In a separate argument before the same appeals judges, another
group of dissenters led by two industry trade groups will argue
the settlement is not in the public interest, as required by
U.S.  antitrust laws.

The main legal question will be whether the lower court judge,
U.S.  District Judge Collen Kollar-Kotelly, properly interpreted
a 2001 ruling by the appeals court, which outlined how to design
a remedy to address Microsoft's antitrust violations.

George Mason University law professor Ernest Gellhorn said
Kollar-Kotelly will likely get a lot of deference from the
appeals judges, having presided over long hearings and having
written a 500-page opinion on the case.

"It's not whether she reached the right decision, but whether
her decision on remedies was reasonable," he said.

The appeals court transferred the case to Kollar-Kotelly in June
2001 after ruling that Microsoft had illegally maintained its
Windows operating system monopoly, but rejected a proposal to
break the company in two.

In November of 2001, Microsoft and the Justice Department agreed
to settle the case.  The company agreed to restrictions that
would, among other things, give computer makers greater freedom
to feature rival software on their machines by allowing them to
hide some Microsoft icons on the Windows desktop.  Continued ...
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