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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chung Yang who wrote (10828)	8/11/1998 9:26:00 PM
From: Michael L. Voorhees	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

This is great. Can you see Butthead responding to deposition questions associated with his public appearances and all their profuse bullshit. Like, the InterNet will never be important. Java is useless, etc. etc. I want to watch this one on CNBC. I'll bet he's never been in a deposition. He'll fume at the loss of control. Judge: Gates should be deposed publicly By Bob Trott InfoWorld Electric Posted at 3:30 PM PT, Aug 11, 1998 Citing a very obscure provision of U.S. antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the public can watch the government's deposition of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, once both sides determine how he and other company officials can discuss corporate secrets in such an open forum. Several news organizations petitioned U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to attend the Gates deposition, as well as those of other Microsoft officials, citing a provision in the 85-year-old Sherman Antitrust Act called the Publicity in Taking Evidence Act. The provision states that such interviews "shall be open to the public as freely as are trials in open court." Microsoft, which lost a battle last week to limit Gates' pretrial testimony, opposed the move in Jackson's courtroom Tuesday in Washington. The New York Times, The Seattle Times, Reuters, ZD Net, and Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television, filed the motion. Jackson said the two sides must agree to a procedure for taking public depositions that also "protects the interests of the parties and of third-party deponents in preventing unnecessary disclosure of trade secrets or other confidential information." The news organizations "and all other members of the public shall be admitted to all depositions to be taken henceforth in this action, including the deposition of William Gates III, to the extent space is reasonably available to accommodate them consistent with public safety and order." One legal expert said the Publicity in Taking Evidence Act is invoked "once in a figurative full moon." Ironically, that last time was in the mid-1970s, in the U.S. government's case against another technology giant, IBM. "It is an obscure statute," said Philip O'Neill, an antitrust lawyer at the Washington, D.C., firm of Jackson & Campbell. "I've been in practice more than 20 years and I have never encountered it before." "It is increasingly likely now that the trial will be postponed," O'Neill said. "The logistics could take days to work out. It carries a serious potential for disrupting the trial date, which neither party professes to want at this point." The planned deposition of Gates by Justice Department officials, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in the Seattle area, was up in the air after Jackson's decision. The judge had offered Gates and prosecutors the use of a courtroom in Washington, D.C., for the deposition. A representative said Microsoft, though grateful that Jackson wanted to protect against disclosure of trade secrets, nevertheless was concerned. "We're reviewing the order to determine how to proceed," said spokesman Adam Sohn. "The judge seeks protections for confidential information for all of the parties, but we frankly are quite concerned about the impact on our trial preparation." Before Jackson's ruling, Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan had warned that the Justice Department and the news organizations "are turning this into more of a circus-type atmosphere" by seeking to make public the Gates deposition. The Justice Department sided with the news organizations, arguing that a public deposition of the Microsoft chairman would not delay the trial or hamper the company's defense. However, Jackson -- who had warned in the hearing that opening the depositions up to the public could severely delay the trial -- said the antitrust provision gave him no choice but to order the deposition be held publicly. Justice Department officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Microsoft Corp., in Redmond, Wash., is at microsoft.com. The U.S. Department of Justice, in Washington, is at usdoj.gov. Bob Trott is a senior editor for InfoWorld.