Legal Update

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has appointed a mediator in the Microsoft antitrust case and has ordered the two sides to negotiate “seven days a week and around the clock” to reach a settlement. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear Microsoft’s appeal in the case, putting the company’s fate in the hands of the district court.

In other legal news, Microsoft faces a challenge to Windows XP in South Korea, a lawsuit by Novell over misleading marketing materials, and a request for investigation of its licensing practices by a consortium of powerful British companies.

Settlement Talks Ordered

At a Sept. 28 hearing, Judge Kollar-Kotelly ordered the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Microsoft to enter intensive negotiations and report back to her every 10 days, warning that she has “broad discretion” to determine penalties against Microsoft if a settlement cannot be reached. On Oct. 12, with talks making no progress, Kollar-Kotelly appointed a mediator, Eric Green, a professor of law at Boston University with extensive experience in achieving out-of-court settlements but no deep antitrust or computer industry expertise. Any settlement will likely be modeled on interim remedies imposed in the original decision by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. (For a list of some of these remedies, see “Legal Update: No Breakup Sought; EC Turns Up Heat” on page 22 of the Oct. 2001 Update.)