The nine states still pursuing the Microsoft Corp. antitrust case told a federal judge on Friday that they have "long and clearly established" authority to seek their own sanctions against the company.

In a legal brief filed with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the nine states cited longtime legal precedent in an effort to fend off Microsoft's contention that they have no legal standing to interfere with the U.S. Justice Department's nationwide settlement of the case.

The filing comes only two days before the scheduled start of hearings designed to determine whether the judge should impose stricter sanctions than those in the Justice Department deal.

The dissenting states, which include California, Massachusetts, Iowa and Connecticut, said their right to pursue the case separately from the Justice Department "has been so long and clearly established that it cannot today be seriously challenged."

The dissenting states got support for their argument from one of the state officials who signed on to the settlement: New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

In a separate legal filing, Spitzer also disputed the legal basis for Microsoft's argument.

"Microsoft has stitched together this argument from whole cloth," Spitzer wrote in his brief.

Microsoft asked Kollar-Kotelly last month to dismiss the stringent antitrust sanctions being sought by the dissenting states, saying the states are trying to "displace" the Justice Department's decision to settle the case.

News source: Reuters - States Say They Can Seek Own Microsoft Sanctions

Long Shot

The dissenting states "seek to establish themselves as national antitrust policymakers," Microsoft said in its brief. Their proposal "effectively would dictate how Microsoft conducts its business in all 50 states. This they cannot do."

If Microsoft's argument were upheld, it would reverse legal precedent that gives state attorneys general the authority to pursue antitrust cases apart from the federal government.

Legal analysts believe the Microsoft argument is a long shot, but one that could potentially hamper the states' future ability to pursue cases separately.

Microsoft reached a deal with the Justice Department in November to settle the long-running case by, among other things, agreeing to give computer makers more freedom to feature rivals' software on the machines they sell.

Nine of the 18 states in the lawsuit agreed to sign on to the deal, but nine others are pressing ahead and asking Kollar-Kotelly to impose stricter sanctions.

The dissenting states say their remedies would close a series of loopholes in the Justice Department settlement. It also would force Microsoft to sell a cheaper, stripped-down version of its monopoly Windows operating system and disclose the inner workings of Windows.

Microsoft has criticized the states' proposal as radical and harmful to consumers.

In a landmark ruling on the case in June, a federal appeals court dismissed parts of the government's case, but upheld a lower court's conclusion that Microsoft had used illegal tactics to maintain the Windows monopoly.


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