
Microsoft wants private lawsuits dismissed
Microsoft has asked the federal judge overseeing the 62 private antitrust lawsuits it faces to dismiss all the claims.
Microsoft has asked the federal judge overseeing the 62 private antitrust lawsuits it faces to dismiss all the claims.
The software giant argued in a 40-page document submitted to the US district court in Baltimore that because consumers buy Windows operating systems through PC and device manufacturers, rather than direct from manufacturers, antitrust laws do not apply.
The motion relies on a legal argument from a 1997 Supreme Court case concerning price fixing by an Illinois concrete block manufacturer. A ruling was made in this case that consumers must buy products directly from an alleged monopolist to have a case for damages against them.
Microsoft has asked Judge J Frederick Motz to either dismiss or make a summary ruling in its favour on a total of 62 class action cases, most of which have been amalgamated into a single complaint.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said that a number of class action lawsuits, from individuals and groups who feel they have been overcharged, have already been dismissed.
Most of these private actions were filed after the landmark decision by US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that Microsoft was a monopoly in the PC operating system market and that it violated antitrust laws. He ruled that Microsoft should be split into separate operating system and applications companies.
The US Supreme Court will decide in autumn whether to hear Microsoft's appeal or send it to the Court of Appeals first, which the software giant would prefer.
Further reading
V3 Latest
TSMC starts high volume production of 7nm chips
Claims to have "the most competitive logic density" in the industry
Dell unveils Precision 5530 2-in-1 mobile workstation with Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics
Dell's high-end mobile workstations upgraded with Intel Coffee Lake CPUs
Europol coordinates close down of 'world's biggest' DDoS-for-hire service
Webstresser admins were also arrested in the UK, Croatia, Canada and Serbia
Almost 90 per cent of UK websites suffer from 'serious' security flaws
Security firm claims that 117,638 sites out of 135,035 analysed contain serious security flaws