Microsoft Corp. will have to adhere to the established schedule for remedy proceedings in the antitrust case
that nine states are still pursuing against the software maker.
In late December, Microsoft motioned to amend the schedule, arguing that the non-settling states had “initiated over-broad
discovery.”
“At the very least, however, the scheduling order should be amended in view of the non-settling states’ dramatic expansion of the
scope of the litigation beyond what the court reasonably could have anticipated three months ago,” the company said in a court
filing on Dec. 21. “Regardless of the resources that Microsoft devotes to this litigation, Microsoft cannot prepare for an
evidentiary hearing on the many complex issues raised by the non-settling states’ request for “relief” within the time now
provided.”
Microsoft then requested that the remedy hearings, scheduled to begin March 11, be pushed back by at least four months.
But the nine states which chose not to join the U.S. Department of Justice’s settlement with the company — California, Connecticut,
Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah, and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia — asked Judge Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia to reject Microsoft’s request, saying that Microsoft had
plenty of warning that the dissenters were likely to seek broad conduct remedies.
In a hearing held Monday morning, Judge Kollar-Kotelly sided with the states, noting that the March 11 date was still “workable.”