US court quashes Microsoft bid for IBM documents in EU case ~ could harm U.S. sovereignty

MarketWatch ^ | 4:49 PM ET Apr 20, 2006 | MarketWatch staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

BRUSSELS (MarketWatch) -- A U.S. court in New York on Thursday quashed a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) subpoena for International Business Machines Corp.'s (IBM) documents related to the software company's European anti-trust case, Microsoft said Thursday.

Judge Colleen McMahon said Microsoft's subpoena amounted to a "blatant end run" on the European Commission's authority. The judge noted that the Brussels-based regulator strongly opposed Microsoft's request and said enforcing such a subpoena could harm U.S. sovereignty if a foreign court were used to obtain documents in a U.S. proceeding.

Microsoft says the commission is colluding with IBM and other rivals and denying the company a fair chance to review key evidence. The regulator has refused to give Microsoft access to some documents, citing confidentiality concerns and rivals' "fear of retaliation," according to a Boston court ruling earlier this week in which a judge quashed a similar Microsoft request for documents held by Novell Inc. (NOVL).

Last month a U.S. federal court in California rejected Microsoft's request for documents from Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW). Microsoft appealed that decision. However, Microsoft decided to withdraw the appeal following the New York court's ruling.

"The writing is clearly on the wall for these actions, and we will not be pursuing them any further," Microsoft spokesman Tom Brookes said.

The four competitors named in the U.S. subpoenas have supported European regulators' finding that Microsoft isn't doing enough to comply with a March 2004 antitrust decision. In that ruling, the European Commission fined Microsoft a record EUR497 million and ordered it to help rivals make their software products mesh with servers running the ubiquitous Windows operating system.

Microsoft now faces further fines of as much as EUR2 million a day for failing to provide adequate guidelines on this so-called "interoperability" issue.

Microsoft argues that it has complied with the regulator's orders, but will make further concessions if necessary. Commission officials and lawyers familiar with the case say Microsoft is unlikely to dissuade Neelie Kroes, the commission's top antitrust official, from levying fines, which will be backdated to Dec. 15.

Microsoft, the commission and rival companies will square off in an E.U. court in Luxembourg next week in Microsoft's appeal of the regulator's March 2004 ruling.

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[TechJunkYard]

Being a user of open source and being a full time pusher of the far left extreme elements of it are entirely different.

Egads! He finally gets it!

[Golden Eagle]

That's right, either you support free software for the everyone in the world including Iran and Cuba or you don't. And obviously you boys are in lockstep with Stallman and the U.N. every step of the way.