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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (48159)	7/26/2000 1:18:13 PM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

Duke and all other Level Headed Softees: This is an excellent brief as it sums up the entire kangaroo court of Jackson and Klein perfectly: Court - Microsoft-3:Microsoft Says Judge Made Errors Wednesday, July 26, 2000 11:45 AM Judge Jackson agreed with the government, certifying the case for direct appeal to the Supreme Court under a little-used law allowing important antitrust cases to bypass the appeals court. Jackson's June 7 verdict ordered a government-supervised breakup of the company into two parts, accompanied by strict conduct rules meant to stop anticompetitive behavior. However, Jackson stayed the remedies pending the Supreme Court appeal. In its brief, Microsoft said its appeal raises numerous procedural, factual and legal issues. Full consideration of the extensive trial record would impose an "extraordinary" burden on the Supreme Court. Microsoft said Jackson's trial "went badly awry from the outset." Over the course of the trial, the court permitted the Justice Department and the 19 state attorneys general "to transform their case beyond recognition," resulting in "an array of serious substantive and procedural errors." Yet Jackson denied Microsoft additional time to prepare an expanded defense, the company said. Instead, the court "pressed ahead with its plan for a compressed and expedited trial." The trial began in October 1998 and ended in June, with Jackson allotting substantial time within that 21-month period for the companies to reach a settlement on their own. Microsoft's brief asserts that Jackson largely suspended federal rules of evidence, "admitting numerous newspaper and magazine articles and other rank hearsay." Written testimony of James Barksdale, former chief executive of Netscape, contained 69 paragraphs of "inadmissible hearsay." Jackson found that Microsoft used its monopoly power to squash competition from Netscape, now a unit of America Online Inc. (AOL, news, msgs), whose pioneering Navigator Internet browsing software threatened to undermine the importance of Windows. The complexity of the technologies in question makes it even more important for the appeals court to sift through the record prior to Supreme Court review, Microsoft said. The company noted that the Appeals Court has agreed to hear the case "en banc," eliminating the usual step of initial review by a three-judge panel with subsequent en banc appeal to the full appeals court. In addition, the "severity of the remedy imposed and the significance of the case to the nation's economy makes it more important - not less - that these appeals proceed through intermediate appellate review in the normal course," Microsoft said. The Justice Department and states had no immediate response. They are scheduled to file response briefs on Aug. 15; Microsoft, if it chooses, may respond on Aug. 22. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, arguments could be scheduled in the court term beginning in October, with a ruling expected before the end of June 2001. -By Mark Wigfield, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-828-3397; mark.wigfield@dowjones.com Microsoft's brief asserts that Jackson largely suspended federal rules of evidence, "admitting numerous newspaper and magazine articles and other rank hearsay." Written testimony of James Barksdale, former chief executive of Netscape, contained 69 paragraphs of "inadmissible hearsay." Jackson found that Microsoft used its monopoly power to squash competition from Netscape, now a unit of America Online Inc. (AOL, news, msgs), whose pioneering Navigator Internet browsing software threatened to undermine the importance of Windows. The complexity of the technologies in question makes it even more important for the appeals court to sift through the record prior to Supreme Court review, Microsoft said. The company noted that the Appeals Court has agreed to hear the case "en banc," eliminating the usual step of initial review by a three-judge panel with subsequent en banc appeal to the full appeals court. In addition, the "severity of the remedy imposed and the significance of the case to the nation's economy makes it more important - not less - that these appeals proceed through intermediate appellate review in the normal course," Microsoft said. The Justice Department and states had no immediate response. They are scheduled to file response briefs on Aug. 15; Microsoft, if it chooses, may respond on Aug. 22. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, arguments could be scheduled in the court term beginning in October, with a ruling expected before the end of June 2001. JFD