Microsoft has been rebuffed a second time in its attempts to subpoena competitors in order to fight its antitrust case with the European Union. A U.S. District Court judge in Boston said Monday that allowing Microsoft to obtain documents from Novell would undermine European Union law.
Now, keep in mind I haven't read the opinion (and likely wouldn't understand it if I had) so I'm taking BetaNews's analysis at face value (and assume all the risks that implies), but I simply don't understand the reasoning. Why should US law be subjagated to EU law?
Wolf also admitted that, at first, he had been leaning towards siding with the Redmond company. However, Microsoft's repeated assertions that the European Commission lacked any authority to bar Microsoft from seeing the documents changed his mind.
To make matters worse, Wolf admits, to my reading, that Microsoft may be right in seeking the documents, but the way that they did it pissed him off. If Microsoft's competitors are, indeed, colluding against the company (as Microsoft alledges) then Microsoft should, rightly, have access to the documents to support their claim regardless of EU's opinion on the matter.
Creative judicial opinions that are used to "punish" unpopular companies and legislation undermine the rule of law and the US has become complicit in the EU's crusade against success.
No comments:
Post a Comment