News

West Virginia, Massachusetts Appeal Antitrust Ruling

• By Scott Bekker
• December 03, 2002

Two of the nine states that sought tougher antitrust remedies for Microsoft will appeal a federal judge's decision last month to accept Microsoft's settlement with the Justice Department and reject the harsher penalties.

West Virginia and Massachusetts will appeal U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's ruling. The other seven states that didn't agree to settle with Microsoft in 2001 announced Friday that they wouldn't appeal. Those states are California, Connecticut, Iowa, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota and Utah. Microsoft will pay those seven states $25 million in legal fees and $3.6 million for enforcement.

Microsoft settled the long-running case with the Bush Administration Justice Department and nine other states late in 2001. The nine non-settling states offered the court a harsher set of antitrust penalties for Microsoft that Judge Kollar-Kotelly considered along with the proposed settlement in parallel hearings earlier this year.

In the end, the judge upheld most of the antitrust settlement and rejected nearly all of the non-settling states' remedy proposals.