>Microsoft Break-Up Order Reversed by Appeals Court
>http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010628/ts/microsoft_ruling_dc_1.html
Microsoft shouldn'tstart celebrating yet. The Court actually ruled that Microsoft had violated anti-trust laws and engaged in illegal anti-competitive actions. The remedy of breaking up Microsoft was vacated because of Judge Penfield Jackson's comments to the press that the Appeals Court deemed to create the appearance of bias.
So while Jackson's conclusions of law were upheld - a significant loss for Microsoft - the shape of the remedy is being remanded to a new district judge, who could potentially order the same remedy.
The main win on the law, from the press reports I've seen, is that the Appeals Court expressed doubt that merely incorporating a browser into the operating system counted as a violation of the anti-trust law, essentially restating an earlier ruling by the same court. We'll see what effect that has on the overall remedy, since Jackson's ruling of law and fact were quite a bit broader than the original "tying" claim.
BTW the Supreme Court has actually made some terrific rulings this week on the rights of immigrants against deportation, ruling that immigrants cannot be denied a court hearing by the Congress and just today that deportees cannot be held indefinately just because no other nation will take them. Also, an ambiguously decent "takings" ruling today. Sandra Day O'Connor makes rotten arbitrary "balancing test" rulings, but sometimes that helps curb the reactionary insanity of where folks like Scalia would like to take the law.
-- Nathan Newman