Microsoft Corp. failed in its bid to subpoena communications
from IBM Corp. relating to an antitrust case against Microsoft in
the European Union, when a U.S. District Court judge in New York
quashed Microsoft's request on Thursday.
In an attempt to substantiate its allegations that the European
Commission colluded with its rivals over enforcement of the
antitrust ruling, Microsoft had asked U.S. courts in Massachusetts,
California and New York to order IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc., Novell
Inc. and Oracle Corp. to hand over details of their communications
with the Commission and with the monitoring trustee for the case.
All three courts have now rejected Microsoft's requests.
Starting Monday, Microsoft will begin its appeal against the
2004 antitrust ruling at the European Court of First Instance in
Luxembourg. The hearing runs through next Friday.
In 2004, the Commission found Microsoft guilty of abusing its
dominance in the operating system market for desktop computer
systems, and ordered the company to provide details of the
communications protocols used by its workgroup server software,
among other remedies. The Commission appointed a monitoring trustee
-- selected from a list proposed by Microsoft -- to evaluate the
company's compliance with the ruling. His responsibilities include
consulting with Microsoft's competitors to gauge the effects of the
remedies on the market.
In March, Microsoft accused the Commission and the monitoring
trustee of colluding with its rivals and sought to obtain details
of their communications from the Commission.
Frustrated by the Commission's refusal on the grounds that its
procedural rules made such communications secret, Microsoft sought
to obtain the documents from the U.S. offices of the companies
concerned.
Judge Colleen McMahon issued an opinion Thursday quashing the
request for IBM's documents, confirmed Tom Brookes, a spokesman for
Microsoft in Europe.
A California court rejected Microsoft's request for Sun and
Oracle documents last month, and on Monday another court in
Massachusetts quashed its attempt to subpoena communications from
Novell.
Microsoft has decided not to pursue the California case further.
"The writing was clearly on the wall. They're not going to be
pursued further," said Brookes.
"Things have moved on in Brussels, and some of the clarification
that Microsoft was seeking [from the monitoring trustee] we have
received," he said.
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