Microsoft Corp. must pay the
Massachusetts attorney general’s office $967,014 for legal fees
incurred in the state’s antitrust challenge to the world’s biggest
software maker, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s decision in
Washington concludes nine months of litigation over legal
compensation for Massachusetts lawyers. The fees were based on the
rates charged by antitrust lawyers in the Washington, D.C. area,
rather than the actual salaries of state assistant attorneys
general.
Massachusetts was among 19 states that joined the U.S.
Justice Department in an antitrust lawsuit resulting in the 1999
decision that Microsoft abused its monopoly for Windows, the
operating system that runs 95 percent of the world’s personal
computers. The state was the last holdout among nine states that
objected to the justice department’s 2001 agreement with Microsoft
settling the case.
“This case has serious implications for competition and
consumers and will have a significant impact on the future
direction of our economy,” Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas
Reilly said.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said the judge’s order
was less than half of what the Massachusetts attorneys had
requested.
“We respectfully disagreed with Massachusetts’s request for
fees on the basis that they did not prevail on the vast majority
of their original claims,” Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake
said. “Our priority is to move past this case and to build more
constructive relationships with state governments.”
Bloomberg News
