Now it's (probably) over
For many people, it might have seemed as if Microsoft's federal antitrust battle ended in 2002, when a judge approved the company's settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and many of the states that had been involved in the case. But in fact, even after that ruling, U.S. trade groups and some of the states continued to challenge the settlement as inadequate.
Massachussets has been the last state holding out, but yesterday the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the state's appeal in a decision that contained some unusually exuberant language. ("We say, Well done!") You can download a .pdf of the ruling here. The only question now is whether Massachusetts will try to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Other lawyers involved in the case say the state's prospects for success on appeal would be low.
One of the people I talked with about the ruling yesterday was Bill Neukom, the former Microsoft general counsel, who led Microsoft's legal team throughout the historic case. His thoughts on the decision and his reflections on the case are included in this story about the ruling from this morning's paper.
Of course, the end of the federal antitrust case, though significant, wouldn't mean the end of Microsoft's antitrust problems. The company is appealing the European Commission's landmark antitrust ruling, and it still faces an antitrust suit from RealNetworks, among other challenges. But Microsoft has cleared some serious hurdles in the past year, most significantly by settling antitrust disputes with America Online and Sun Microsystems. The company also has resolved many of the state consumer class action suits that arose from the monopoly finding in the federal case.
Here's some additional coverage from other newspapers around the country. (Some of these sites require free registration):
Posted by Todd Bishop at July 1, 2004 07:08 AM
