Justice Department cuddles up with Microsoft

Nick Farrell
The Inquirer
Tuesday June 12, 2007

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft has had a friend in the Department of Justice ever since the Bush administration took over.

According to the New York Times, the DoJ has gone from prosecuting Vole under the Clinton administration to defending it against those nasty companies that do not like its anti-competitive practices.

A top antitrust official at the Justice Department was last month caught telling state prosecutors to reject a confidential antitrust complaint filed by Google.

The courts should not have been too surprised. The bloke making the call was Thomas Barnett who until 2004 was a top antitrust partner at the law firm that has represented Microsoft in several antitrust disputes.

The Times says that with the change in administrations no-one is interested how Microsoft and other large companies use their market power.

It points out that the United States government delegation to the European Union complained to European regulators that Microsoft had been denied access to evidence it needed to defend itself in an investigation there into possible anticompetitive conduct.

The delegation included Ambassador Boyden Gray, who had also worked for Microsoft as a lawyer and lobbyist.

Apparently, the Vole spent more than $55 million on lobbying activities in Washington from 2000 to 2006 and substantially more on lawyers. This sort of wonga has become a more effective lobbying organisation, it seems.

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