By Rachel Chalmers
Lawyers for Microsoft Corp have interviewed an executive involved in America Online’s $9.9bn purchase of Netscape Communications Corp. The acquisition was finalized last month, but Peter Currie, chief financial officer of what is now the Netscape division of AOL, testified that AOL’s fear of Microsoft nearly wrecked the whole deal. We did wonder if AOL would by acquiring Netscape secure the animus of Microsoft, Currie told Microsoft lawyer Michael Lacovara. If AOL got weak-kneed or cold feet this deal would vanish.
Microsoft apparently believes that the details of the Netscape/AOL deal will have some bearing on its defense in the company’s ongoing antitrust trial, brought against it by the US Department of Justice and 19 states. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson appears to support this view. At the time of the acquisition, he said: There might be a very significant change in the playing field.
As for Currie, he admitted that he knew the merger with AOL could affect Microsoft’s trial, but added that: We need to make decisions about the business and treat the trial like a separate issue. Currie is the first of three executives involved in the deal to be interviewed by Microsoft. On Friday, Sun’s Mike Popov will give his side of the story in a San Francisco courthouse. Next week, AOL chief executive Steve Case will have his turn.
In other trial news, the government has released thousands of pages of past depositions, but lead prosecutor David Boies warns reporters not to expect too much from the new documents. If you find anything in those pages that is not already in evidence at the trial, we have not done our job, he told Reuters. Our job was to pick out what is best. Next week the government and Microsoft must disclose the names of their final, rebuttal witnesses. The trial, which is now in recess, seems likely to resume mid-May.
