MICROSOFT Court takes new look at antitrust case

Massachusetts wants thesettlement overturned.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. is returning to the U.S. appeals court where the world's largest software company already has won significant victories since the government began investigating its business practices nearly a decade ago.
Six appellate judges who agreed in June 2001 that Microsoft had illegally abused its monopoly over Windows software are considering whether the Bush administration and 19 states negotiated adequate antitrust sanctions in a court-approved settlement.
The attorney general in one state, Tom Reilly of Massachusetts, wants tougher penalties, arguing that the settlement was so profoundly flawed that the trial judge's approval of it represented an abuse of her discretion.
Response
"The settlement is a proper one, tough but fair," countered Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith. "It was a technical and legally complex settlement, not an approach that makes sense for one government to upset after 20 other governments have already agreed to its terms."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was hearing arguments today on the Massachusetts appeal of the terms of the settlement.
The government traditionally has broad latitude to fashion such settlements with companies before an antitrust trial, unless the judge can demonstrate the terms would violate the public interest. In this case, critics believe the courts should be more rigorously involved in setting sanctions because Microsoft was already determined to be an abusive monopolist.