Microsoft Corp and its friend at the Justice Department, Anne Bingaman, have roundly seen off Judge Stanley Sporkin and all his works. A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday upheld the Justice Department’s antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp, and effectively said that the law that requires that judges should oversee such settlements are required to wield little more than a rubber stamp, because it acceded to Microsoft’s request that Judge Sporkin should be removed from overseeing the settlement. The court ruled that the settlement was in the public interest and that Judge Sporkin exceeded his legal authority in rejecting the accord. The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel of the appeals court sent the case back to the lower court with an order to approve, and granted the separate request by Microsoft that Judge Sporkin, who rejected the agreement in February, from the case on the grounds that he would have difficulty putting his previous views aside. Under the consent decree, Microsoft agreed to change the way it licenses its software to personal computer manufacturers, so that it can no longer charge manufacturers for every machine they sell even if some of them go out without Windows, or making discounts dependent on vendors not offering to preload any rival operating systems as options.
