Microsoft filing deadline extended again
Published: 18 Sep 2001 14:04 BST
For the second time in a week, Microsoft and the government received an extension in an important court filing.
On Friday, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly extended the deadline to 12 p.m. EDT on Friday for a joint status report originally due 14 September.
That deadline has now been extended until Thursday, and a hearing scheduled for Friday will now take place on 28 September.
Both Microsoft and the Justice Department are apparently grappling with the effects of last week's devastating attacks in Washington D.C. and in New York.
President Bush ordered Washington evacuated following Tuesday's attack, and the Justice Department increasingly has been focusing resources on manhunt for additional terrorists or those supporting the 19 hijackers.
Microsoft's lead counsel, Sullivan Cromwell, last week evacuated its main office near the ruined World Trade Center. The office, along with many others on Wall Street, reopened on Monday.
"In light of recent tragic events affecting the nation, the Court has received various requests for extensions of time," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in Monday's order changing the schedule. "Specifically, all of the parties have requested an extension of time for the filing of the Joint Status Report."
Besides those requests, "defendant Microsoft has requested that the Status Conference date be vacated and rescheduled for a later date in order to facilitate travel by counsel," the order continued. "Both the United States and the [18] states have consented to this request."
As the case returns to trial court, Microsoft last week tried to return the focus to the Supreme Court. The company slammed a government brief urging the Supreme Court to reject a request for appeal.
Microsoft wants the nation's highest court to throw out US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's two-part ruling upheld by seven appellate jurists in June. Microsoft contends Jackson making out-of-court comments to the media before drafting the ruling warrants Supreme Court review.
In the meantime, proceedings before Kollar-Kotelly are expected to continue, with the government preparing to ask for additional discovery about Microsoft technologies and business practices since the trial ended before Jackson last year.
Emmett Stanton, an antitrust lawyer with Fenwick and West in Palo Alto, California, said the joint status report would be important for establishing a schedule for future proceedings.
"I think the government is probably going to take the position they can be ready in weeks or months to propose the specific remedies and have Microsoft argue why those shouldn't be imposed," he said.
Kollar-Kotelly is drafting a new remedy because the Court of Appeals threw out Jackson's break-up remedy and ordered he be removed from the case for his out-of-court comments.
Kollar-Kotelly picked up the landmark case in a random ballot last month. The judge's main task will be drafting a new remedy to deal with the eight separate antitrust violations upheld by the Court of Appeals.
See the DoJ/Microsoft News Section for the latest headlines.
Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Click on the TalkBack button and go to the Microsoft forum.
Did you find this article useful?
17 out of 41 people found this useful
- Share this article:
