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Microsoft Subpoenas Thrown out of Court
liliafan writes "Following Microsoft's attempt to subpoena documents through US courts, relating to their ongoing anti-trust case in the UK, the judge in California has thrown the case out of court citing: 'As a matter of comity, this court is unwilling to order discovery when doing so will interfere with the European Commission's orderly handling of its own enforcement proceedings.' as his reasoning."
I know these are "stupid" questions, on many levels (especially in this venue), but does MSFT even make 200-million Euros a day in sales to the EU? No.
Does that matter? (No. That was a rhetorical question.)
That seems like a rediculous amount, no matter how evil MSFT may be. Isn't that more than 2x MSFT world-wide REVENUE, much less, EU PROFIT?
Where are you getting your numbers? Do you even have sources? Or are you just pulling numbers out of your ass?
"What if they don't pay?"
Their assets within the EU will be seized and auctioned off to pay for related debts, treated as though the company were to go bankrupt. The employees of said assets would be left to look elsewhere for companies to remain loyal to, ergo lose their jobs at EU-MSFT.
What if they said "screw you, I'm going home" and stopped officially selling product in the EU?
See above, as well as their stock price falling sharply because their stock holders wouldn't like their company to refuse business with an entire continent.
As much as many do not like MSFT, this stinks of some sort of politicical extortion, plain and simple.
It has been debated until the cows eventually came home that MSFT deserves this punishment. I don't know how you managed to get modded up to 3, Insightful.
Microsoft subpoenaed the documents. Competitors said they were irrelevant. The determining justice reviewed those documents, and agreed. Microsoft tried to find out what they were anyway - why on earth should they be able to hunt through confidential documents of a competitor that have been ruled to be irrelevant, just because they're involved in legal action? Discovery is a regulated process, not one of "All your document are belong to us."