[Random-bits] James Grimaldi in WP: Top Lawyers to AID Microsoft

[James Love]

Congratulations to James Grimaldi for his new job at the Washington
Post.
Jamie


http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/feed/a52590-2000jan31.htm

Top Lawyers to Aid Microsoft
By James V. Grimaldi,  Washington Post Staff Writer 
    
    
   Monday, January 31, 2000; Page A04 

Two former attorneys general and two former White House lawyers are part
of a high-powered team recruited by a group with close ties to Microsoft
Corp. to take the software giant's side in its antitrust battle with the
federal government.

The Association for Competitive Technology, a trade group backed by
Microsoft, has hired the Washington law firm Wilmer, Cutler &
Pickering and recruited prominent lawyers to join in a
friend-of-the-court brief arguing that Microsoft did not break federal
antitrust laws, said Jonathan Zuck, the group's president.

  [snip]

"We take the facts as the judge found them and on that basis will show
that Microsoft hasn't violated the antitrust laws and has in fact
engaged in the kind of vigorous and aggressive competition that the
antitrust laws encourage," Wilmer, Cutler attorney Michael Burack said.

The brief will be signed by Lloyd Cutler and C. Boyden Gray, partners of
the firm and both former White House counsels. Cutler served Presidents
Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Gray worked in the Bush administration.

Also to sign briefs are Louis Cohen, a deputy solicitor general for
President Ronald Reagan; Griffin Bell, U.S. attorney general under
Carter; Nicholas Katzenbach, U.S. attorney general under President
Lyndon Johnson and the International Business Machines Corp. attorney
who fought the federal government's unsuccessful antitrust lawsuit; and
Howard Trienens, an AT&T Corp. attorney during the breakup of the
Bell System in an antitrust suit settlement with the Justice Department. 

    [snip]

Katzenbach worked with David Boies when he was one of the lead outside
attorneys for IBM. Boies, now working on the Microsoft case, was hired
to lead the effort by the Justice Department and 19 states against
Microsoft. Cutler also had worked with Boies when he helped encourage
the government to dismiss the IBM lawsuit.


  [snip}

While Zuck says the Association of Competitive Technology represents
9,000 independent software vendors, he acknowledges that Microsoft is "a
standout" among its contributors. He would not disclose the percentage
of the group's budget that is covered by Microsoft's contributions.

Zuck said, however, that the legal fees for the brief were paid
primarily by Corporate Software Technology, a computer reseller in
Norwood, Mass., and Clarity Consulting, an information-technology
consulting firm in Chicago.

Gray also has close ties to Microsoft. As chairman of Citizens for a
Sound Economy, a conservative think tank, Gray was a frequent visitor to
the trial to argue Microsoft's case to reporters.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that several months after
Microsoft committed $380,000 to the group's tax-exempt foundation,
officials lobbied to limit the Justice Department's budget. The group
said its support of Microsoft long predated the software company's
contribution.


-- 
James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367        | http://www.cptech.org
Washington, DC 20036  | mailto:love@cptech.org
Voice 1.202.387.8030  | fax 1.202.387.8030