Since Judge Jackson’s decision on 7th June that Microsoft should be broken into two companies, Microsoft has argued that its appeal should be heard by the US Court of Appeals, the forum for most appeals from a District Court, while the government has argued that the case should leap-frog the Court of Appeals and go to the Supreme Court. A US law allows major antitrust cases to go direct to the Supreme Court.
Judge Jackson’s reasons for bypassing the Appeals Court were given as importance to the public and “administration of justice.” The Supreme Court still has the final word on the matter. If it decides to follow Judge Jackson’s reasoning, the final outcome of the case will possibly come sooner than if the case goes first to the Appeals Court, although this is still likely to take one or two years.
Few were surprised by the Judge’s decision to put the case on the fast-track procedure; however, the temporary relief from sanctions was unexpected. Microsoft’s lawyers had described the previously imminent imposition of the sanctions as a “nightmare scenario.”
It had already been established by Judge Jackson that the break up of the company would not take place until the appeals procedure was exhausted; however, the District Court Judge had imposed other remedies, including an obligation to “unbundle” certain software programs from the Windows operating system by December and another forcing it to share parts of the Windows code with other software companies and computer makers by September.