Word: antitrusters
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...breakup announcement, the department said it would similarly not pursue the suit's "tying" claim, that Microsoft had illegally leveraged its monopoly by bundling its Internet browser in Windows. The two moves could be read as confirmation that the Bush Justice Department won't be as aggressive on antitrust matters as its Democratic predecessors...
...notably the $2.5 million Microsoft contributed to President Bush and the Republicans in the 2000 election cycle. The Bush Administration took the unusual step of letting it be known that it is not second-guessing the judgment of Charles James, the recently appointed head of the Justice Department's antitrust division. (In a Senate hearing last week, Justice also disputed charges that it was politically motivated in its attempts to settle the $20 billion lawsuit against the tobacco industry, another big Republican contributor.) Microsoft spokesman Vivek Varma called the charges unfair and pointed out that competitors such as Sun Microsystems...
...recent decision of the U.S. Department of Justice to abandon its previous strategy in the Microsoft case—to break Microsoft into separate companies for operating systems and software applications—is an unfortunate step that raises questions about the Bush administration’s commitment to antitrust enforcement...
Charles A. James, the newly appointed chief of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, attempted to justify this departure by arguing that consumers deserved a swift resolution to the matter, and that limitations on the software giant’s practices would be sufficient to protect competition in the software industry. That logic, however, has not been borne out by experience. Past efforts at limiting Microsoft’s monopolistic behavior through “conduct remedies”—agreements that force a company to change its practices rather than its structure—have...
William Neukom, the company’s chief legal officer, will be in Washington this week, in what is reportedly an effort to present the Justice Department with settlement options. The Antitrust Division should remember its charge, and not fold its cards at the critical moment in the case’s development. There is a difference between reasonable concession and abandoning of principles, and the Justice Department cannot afford to get any closer to that line...