Contact

Click here for a confidential contact or call:

1-212-350-2774

Curtain Falling On Feds’ Long-Playing Epic Antitrust Battle Against Microsoft

Posted  May 5, 2011

The sun will soon set on the epic antitrust battle between the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Microsoft.

The DOJ’s mammoth case against the software giant began 13 years ago, when the agency filed an antitrust complaint accusing Microsoft of using its market power to mercilessly pound its rivals.  The case was actively litigated until 2001, when the parties reached a settlement that provided for government oversight of Microsoft for a decade.

The government oversight is now coming to an end, and will expire on May 12, 2011.

It was back in 1998 that the DOJ, along with by a number of states, sued Microsoft for illegally using its dominance of the operating system market with Windows to shut out rivals to its Internet Explorer web browser.  Two years later, a district judge ruled in favor of the government, but an appeals court overturned that ruling, leading to the settlement in 2001.

Tagged in: Antitrust Enforcement, Antitrust Litigation,