You seem to forget that MS didn't violate US law, but EU regulation. This is simply the appeal within the EU structure.
MS's problems are with the EU, not with the US. With the exceptions of these frivolous legal actions against Novell, IBM, etc., neither the government nor the US courts have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY WHATSOEVER in what happens in Europe.
What happened is that the arbitrators refused to grant MS the ability to subpoena these documents. Subsequently, MS took these companies to federal courts and tried to pry these documents that way.
The truth is that MS wants those documents badly. I don't know why, but as I've said, I suspect the information in them can be used as key items their defense.
A rather shady legal manueuver, but completely legitimate.
You don't even understand why they want the documents, do you. It's called the right to a fair trial, and Microsoft is being denied the right to even know what IBM and Oracle are feeding the EU in the form of supposed complaints. The EU is saying, "you're bad", Microsoft says "why", and the EU then says "well, we can't tell you, it's confidential between IBM and us."
What a load of bull. Janet Reno is probably running the whole thing again.