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Previous Jackson-Awarded Verdict: US$341M
bumppo writes "This BBC News story hasn't really dented domestic news services aside from AP: seven-year Beirut hostage Terry Anderson and his family were awarded $341 million (including $300 million in punitive damages) against Iran and its Ministry of Information and Security. Ass-kicking Microsoft finder-of-fact and presiding judge Thomas Penfield Jackson oversaw the case, and determined the verdict. "
The judgment against Iran has never been recovered, but it does show a willingness to hit the loser in the pocketbook. According to the Bill Gates Net Worth Page, though, if Judge Jackson were to declare so paltry a figure as sufficient to settle the antitrust suit, Bill could cry all the way to several largish banks.
Who cares if Judge Jackson happened to hand down the decision. Is everything that Judge Jackson does now news for nerds? Just because he was fooled into believing by the Justice Department and 19 states that Microsoft is so terrible?
It amazes me that people are so quick to agree with Judge Jackson in the first place. This is SLASHDOT DOT ORG. The home of an angry mob of anti-intrusive government pundits. SLASHDOT - Where EVERYONE is adamantly opposed to any decision dealing with software being made in a courtroom - unless the court battle is against Microsoft. The hypocrisy is amazing.
But I digress. Slashdot uses the motto News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. They also used to use "Ever feel like you're not getting the whole story?"
Well this isn't a nerdy story, and we got the whole story at CNN hours before it was here. THIS is why we need a means of RATING ARTICLES. We don't necessarily need to moderate articles, but we need a means of collectively giving an article the THUMBS DOWN. Anyway, JMTC
Short of a breakup [and that possibility seems remote at this point, given the government's language lately], the worst thing that could happen to Microsoft is for Judge Jackson to hand down a verdict that Microsoft violated anti trust laws (which is going further than the "finding of fact" he released last year).
Regardless of the relative size of any fines or other restrictions on Microsoft's business practices, such a ruling would open Microsoft to enormous amounts of follow-on litigation. Litigation means legal bills, and while MSFT may have the dough to beat ANYone in court, they certainly don't have the resources to beat EVERYone... That's mentioned toward the end of this CNNfn story.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
Does anyone else feel that their tax dollars were wasted in this?
I appreciate that Mr. Anderson went through unconceivable pain and all. However even the judge says : ``the likelihood that any award will ever be paid is minimal.'' I can't even see where a federal judge has any jurisdiction in a case against another nation who did not (nor needs to) participate. I think we all can see that Mr. Anderson and his family went through a terrible situation. Did this do anything other than point out a fact we already know?
As for timothy's comments that this is the same judge that is dealing with the MS trial, I don't see any point there. Judges don't' just preside over one case at a time, I'm sure there's lots of cases he is or may handle. I can't see any reason one would be connected to the other, nor should they be.
Come on!! Is this not stretching the limits of on-topic'ness? What's next? The guy who sells Bill Gates coffee in the morning's mother-in-law dies?? --- evel aka matt