The deal

Published: 14 May 2004 y., Friday
Lawyers who persuaded Microsoft to settle their class-action lawsuit accusing the company of price-fixing are asking for $258 million in legal fees, the largest amount ever in an antitrust case. At a hearing Wednesday where a decision was expected, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Paul Alvarado said he would rule as soon as practically possible. The judge, without hearing arguments, said he was "not prepared" to say "what I'm going to do." The lawyers' bill comes as attorney fees are being examined critically by the American Bar Association and lawmakers across the country. It amounts to about $3,000 an hour for one lawyer, more than $2,000 an hour each for 34 other attorneys and $1,000 an hour for administrative work. Microsoft agreed to the settlement — allocating $1.1 billion for California consumers — after a small San Francisco law firm sued in state court alleging the company inflated prices by monopolizing the pre-installed software market from 1995 to 2001. But Microsoft could end up spending much less. The deal enables anyone who bought a computer in California to get vouchers worth $5 to $29 per Microsoft product, but only a small fraction of the millions eligible have applied for the money. Two-thirds of the unused settlement, however, is earmarked for poor California schools.
Šaltinis: usatoday.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

Query-via-e-mail enabled

INFORMATION BUILDERS NEXT month will announce products to extend enterprise data to a variety of portable devices more »

Lycos sets eye on global gold with deal to build Olympics site

Waltham-based Lycos Inc. hopes a global deal with the sponsors of the 2000 Summer Olympics will provide a major boost to the company's worldwide visibility. more »

search.lt news

search.lt presents newest links more »

Japan launches Internet strategy

Japan is drawing up a five-year plan to surpass the United States as an Internet powerhouse through massive investment in high-speed infrastructure and scuttling laws that inhibit e-commerce. more »

Buy4Now plans to offer one million online items

Traditional retailers Superquinn, Heiton Holdings and Eircom have together taken a 41 per cent stake, valued at euro 4.8 million, in a new Internet shopping venture, Buy4Now.ie. more »

Australian Government Proposes Internet Naming Law

The federal government introduced the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Bill 2000 into the senate. more »

FBI Arrests Man in Emulex Hoax Case

A 23-year-old college student was arrested Thursday and charged with staging one of the biggest financial hoaxes ever on the Internet and pocketing almost $250,000 by issuing fraudulent information on technology company Emulex Corp. more »

Gnutella girds against spam attacks

At last, there's a business model for Gnutella's rough-and-tumble world of file-swapping: spam. more »

You Are Welcome to Visit www.voting.lt

Perhaps it is very difficult to find somebody who is absolutely indifferent to the others’ opinion. There are many ways to get known what other people think: referendums may be organized, questionnaires of different kinds may be prepared. Here we introduce another way you may do it. more »

AOL Instant Messenger gets Napsterized

A new Napster-like program has sprung up online that piggybacks on America Online's popular instant messaging service, limiting swaps of music and other files to close, trusted groups of people. more »