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Last week I mentioned in passing that Microsoft was trying to disqualify the lead opposition lawyer, Roxanne Conlin, in the Iowa state antitrust case because:
… Conlin had improperly persuaded Tom Howery, a Hewlett-Packard technician hired to find and restore missing computer tapes in a previous Microsoft case, to give her internal documents from that case, and how Conlin had kept that information from the court and Microsoft for months.
Conlin’s lawyer, Mark Tripp, responded with outrage, saying Conlin did nothing wrong: “I have never read or heard arguments filled with such distortions and half-truths.”
Microsoft, Tripp said, is engaged in an “ethical witch hunt,” the goal of which is to keep Conlin from trying the case “because they know how good she is, and they don’t want to face her next month in court.”
The conclusion was that on Friday, Polk County District Court Judge Scott Rosenberg ruled that Conlin’s actions were not unethical so it’s full speed ahead on the trial which is expected to start Nov. 13. The reason that tempers are running high in this case is that Conlin has refused to settle for the usual Microsoft voucher deal and is demanding cash for Iowa consumers.
October 28th, 2006 at 12:20 PM
[...] Meanwhile in the Iowa antitrust suit where Microsoft’s attempt last week to disqualify the head opposing lawyer failed, they also failed this week to decertify the class in the class action lawsuit. Trial starts November 13. [...]
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:50 PM
[...] In the latest round of the Iowa antitrust suit against Microsoft ([1], [2], [3]) the presiding judge has ruled that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will testify. That’s not a particular surprise since Microsoft had them on their witness list, but he has agreed to let them be questioned first and in person by the plaintiffs’ attorneys: Des Moines lawyer Roxanne Conlin won a strategic victory today in her class action law suit against Microsoft when a judge said she can call Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and chief executive Steve Ballmer as witnesses to help prove her case against the company. [...]