Lobbying Could Cause Legal Trouble for Microsoft

Rob Isn't Weird writes "In the wake of the exposure of Microsoft's attempt to buy Sweden's vote on OOXML and Sweden's annulment of that vote due to irregularities, IBM's Rob Weir points out that the fiasco could cause anti-trust worries for Microsoft. He quotes ALLIED TUBE & CONDUIT CORP. v. INDIAN HEAD, INC., 486 U.S. 492 (1988), which says 'What petitioner may not do (without exposing itself to possible antitrust liability for direct injuries) is bias the process by, as in this case, stacking the private standard-setting body with decision makers sharing their economic interest in restraining competition.'"

Service please?

Anyone able to translate this into normal-speak?

Oh, and because it's required...Fist Psot, or whatever the first post trolls are saying nowadays...

Re:Service please?

Oh that's handy, so if I get a lower level employee, say a junior manager to do all those illegal things I have thought about doing then that's OK?

Whoever received the communication that Microsoft apologised for seemed to think that the communication was official, that is all that should matter. Organisations need to have some some responsibilities (isn't that what corporate responsibility and due diligence is supposed to be all about?) When it comes to agreements or communications between organisations all parties need to be happy that what is being communicated is the official line, otherwise any organisation could pull out of any agreement they feel is no longer beneficial (a sale, a purchase a contact etc..) by simply claiming that by some fluke the person who negotiated didn't get it right.

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I'm pretty sure that low-level employees don't get to go around promising money for things without management approval. Nobody, especially someone working for Microsoft, is that dumb. Someone in management there approved this. Microsoft's explanation is

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Well yeah that's a given. Doesn't stop companies claiming that it was all jut a big mistake / enthusiasm on the part of a single person.

Strange thing is, if an employee of any company called me and offered me a very valuable service, cash or other product

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Doesn't stop companies claiming that it was all jut a big mistake / enthusiasm on the part of a single person.

Right, and I'll believe that when someone gets fired and doesn't get a big payout/cushy new job along with it.

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Of course they generally leave with obscene heaps of cash in their bags, and get on somewhere else after a nice vacation, and maybe write a book about it.

Yeah ... and then they go on the lecture circuit and make even more heaps of cash, at which point s

Isn't it a bit presumptuous...

to quote a US law in a swedish case? There is a little matter of sovereignty.

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there is just no way that they would do anything like that here in the US....

I think the jump is if they do it out side the US, we should check to see if they do the same thing here.

US laws apply to overseas behavior

In particular, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Of course, IANAL.

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US law extends over most of the world, they just normally can't arrest you until you set foot on US soil - and microsoft is in seattle right now.

If you're unlucky enough to live in the UK, for the last few years you've had to understand US law to avoid bei

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If you are talking about he guys picked up for having previously been involved in banking for online casinos, I'm pretty sure they weren't extradited. They were picked up on U.S. soil in an airport while making a connection on a trip.

(it is still a stupid

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Nono, these guys were in the UK and did something legal in the UK (allegedly - which seems to be supported by the fact that they weren't tried for breaking British law) but were arrested and extradited to the US because the US forbids what they did. Simply

It's an *IBM* guy saying this...

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act [usdoj.gov] is one example where overseas actions can be prosecuted inside the USA. IANAL, so I'm not going to claim that it does apply to Microsoft, especially when I think it's a criminal statute that would have to be prosecuted by the DoJ. I don't even know if there's any civil right of action in there. If there are any lawyers out there, feel free to chime in.

Now then, did you note that this was an IBM guy saying this? Given that Rob's blog covers approximately two things--brewing and OOXML--I'd have to say that he learned about this law from the Nazgul (IBM lawyers, for you young'uns) because I don't think Rob is a lawyer, either. And I don't think normal people go around reading and quoting 20 year old anti-trust cases for fun.

So if IBM is examining something like that, especially when we have Microsoft doing other things like funding SCO, I'd say to stay tuned, because we just might see fireworks in the future. It wouldn't be the first anti-trust action against Microsoft by any means. Mind you, this is 100% speculation, but what do you expect on Slashdot?

Re:It's an *IBM* guy saying this...

Assuming that the reason Rob knows this case law is because IBM's lawyers are discussing it is ... specious. If Rob is involved (or ever has been involved) in a formal Standards process (e.g. served as an ANSI officer) he probably got a briefing (I did when I was ;>). Various bits of arcane anti-trust trivia are shot at the poor volunteer, in the attempt to ensure that a handful of someones in the room during deliberations have a clue as to what is, and what is not legitimate discourse. Otherwise ANSI would lose it's special standing (which permits competitors to meet "safely" in terms of Anti-Trust. This is, of course, purely US experience ... but many other countries have similar systems.

This is just one o many ways that Rob could have been exposed to such things sans IBM lawyer involvement.

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this is exactly why companies are pushing to keep the anti-trust case open a little longer. The current remedy is toothless, but it's like double-secret probation. As long as it's in place there's somebody to take this too. Sort of like grandma being abl

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US law isn't binding for the European Commission, but I can imagine that Mrs. Kroes would like to ask some questions regarding this topic to Microsoft. There seems to be a pattern of unduly influencing the votes of national standardization bodies throughou

Re:Isn't it a bit presumptuous...

It's not a "swedish case". Its about how a US corporation or its subsidiaries behavior in Sweden might make it liable under US anti-trust laws in the US because the actions in Sweden might be aimed at affecting the competitive landscape in the US to.

It's clearly for US courts to decide if a US corporation affects the US competitive landscape.

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Indeed - and it isn't even quoting US law. The author is attempting to twist a Supreme Court decision against a domestic company that influenced a domestic standards agency. And not just any standards agency, but the one that generates the standard elect

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The law may be applicable anyway - figure that if you commit a murder while abroad - do you expect to stay free when you come home? (unless your government sanctioned it, but that's a different question).

Anyway - There is a Swedish authority named Konkur [konkurrensverket.se]

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As far as I understand, you will be extradited if a) the country where crime took place requests it, b) sufficient evidence is given according to standards set by american law and c) there is an extradition treaty. For example, if a european citizen chose

ho hum

Unfortunately for us lowly citizens, US law only *theoretically* applies to Microsoft.

Question on lobbying

Sorry, this is a little off-topic, but I'm curious. I don't really get the specifics of the whole "lobbying" process. Is it just a roundabout way to go about bribing an official? Pay them off prior to them being elected, and threaten to not give them money

Re:Question on lobbying

As improbable as it sounds, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Political lobbyists represent the interests of their clients to various politicians. They can also provide campaign contributions to politicians running for office - which is, if not outright bribery, is definitely within spitting distance. This is the source of much controversy. You can learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_lobbying [wikipedia.org]

How to ruin Microsoft from the inside...

...in three easy steps...

1) Get hired at Microsoft
2) Use your MS email address to offer bribes to public officials without management knowledge
3) Enjoy anti-trust actions

For anything to stick, they would have to show that there was some management involvement. A corporation is not one single mind.

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Use your MS email address to offer bribes to public officials without management knowledge

Actually, if they were public officials rather than a private standard-setting body, Allied Tube wouldn't apply.

For anything to stick, they would have to show that th

INDIAN HEAD?

Whoa whoa whoa, wait... Indian Head? Are you saying, Microsoft outsourced Bill Gates?

More directly:

Although I consider OOXML to be an abomination, at this point Microsoft could be seen as trying to introduce competition. This seems to be more directly related to stacking "no" votes.

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Although I consider OOXML to be an abomination, at this point Microsoft could be seen as trying to introduce competition.

Right. Microsoft is just a little-guy competitor trying to break into the office suite market dominated by OpenOffice.org which is vir

just to even the playing field

the D.O.J should force microsoft to use open file formats such as ODF in their office products...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument [wikipedia.org]

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the D.O.J should force microsoft to use open file formats such as ODF in their office products...

That's the sort of thing that sensible people were proposing when the DOJ had Microsoft in a position where they were going to lose and knew they would have to make reforms. Unfortunately, the open file formats and APIs people were being drowned out by t

Lobbying?

Is that how it's done?

 

what's all this about ?

What's the upshot of all this anyways?
Even if OOXML gets approved for ISO don't we still have a choice? Won't ODF still be there?

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> Even if OOXML gets approved for ISO don't we still have a choice? Won't ODF still be there?

Sure, but will government offices with public records use it? No, they'll choose the "standard".

Frankly, I don't think OOXML is all that satanic, nor is ODF al

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Frankly, I don't think OOXML is all that satanic

Try to implement an app that will round-trip MOOXML through MS Office editing, then get back to us.

I think you'll find it's not possible to use MOOXML unless you're Microsoft.

Re:what's all this about ?

What's the upshot of all this anyways?
Even if OOXML gets approved for ISO don't we still have a choice? Won't ODF still be there?

What's the point of a standard when there is a multiplicity of them? The amount of work required to create an OOXML-compliant office suite could probably be used to better the ODF standard (or at least implement it better). If the same people have to implement two different standards for the same software, either one of the standards will not be implemented as well, or less features will be available in the software since the programmer had to waste time with an extra data format.

Re:what's all this about ?

Even if OOXML gets approved for ISO don't we still have a choice?

I don't know about you, but I certainly won't. Organisations and governments everywhere will choose to use OOXML on the basis that it's an approved ISO standard. People who pay for Microsoft products will be fine (in the short an medium term, at least). Everyone who doesn't will be screwed.

Standards organisations such as the ISO exist to consider standards seriously so that other organisations don't have to, and a lot of trust is put in them. At a time when standards are finally coming to be seen as important by many organisations, Microsoft is trying to make a mockery of the standards-creation process, undermining the ISO and all its stakeholders so it can keep itself on top without actually providing a real, genuine standard.

The trap continues, even for their own formats.

Sure but nothing will actually support it, and those products that do support it will support it in a half-baked, crippled way. MS always used to make sure Word could read WordPerfect documents perfectly, but couldn't create them worth a darn. Expect this type of behavior to continue.

Office 2007 does not even have working support of older M$ formats. Footnote numbering is broken if you save OOXML to WORD.DOC and macros are broken between versions of Excel. I expect to hear similar things powerpoint and other formats as a few foolish people around me continue their Office 2007 trial. As usual, data goes in but does not come out and you can't really co-operate with people who are not on the same point release.

This is stunning behavior, even for M$. A reasonable XML format should support all previous version behavior perfectly because the internal representation does not have to change. The transition should be easier than any previous M$ Office "upgrade" but it is in fact worse than others. For all of their bluster, they have not lived up to the 6,000 pages of specs they are now trying to force on the world as an ISO standard. Un-Fucking-Believable.

Arrogance

The main problem with Microsoft is arrogance. They believe they have the right to do whatever the hell they want. Screw the laws, they don't apply, "We're Microsoft! We're special!" In reality, that's been true. So they were declared an illegal monopoly. So what happened to them? Basically, not a god damn thing. The courts told them to take a 10 minute time-out in the corner, and let them off after only 5 minutes. So of course Microsoft thinks they can do anything they want, because they have been getting away with doing anything they want. Microsoft is incapable of believing the normal rules apply to them. And the more they get away with shit, the more firmly entrenched they will be in this belief and these kinds of kinds of actions.

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It's good to be the king :-)

Re:Arrogance

Actually, the main problem with Microsoft is that they have absolutely no confidence in their own ability to compete. They are desperately looking for some way to cheat the system in order to win. It's rather pathetic, really, as any company that had any confidence in itself would simply use that confidence with some backbone and produce a high quality product that people would prefer to use.

The movement to Linux isn't because it's cheaper. The movement to Linux is because it's better-- in particular, because it doesn't try to bundle stuff in that you don't need and don't want simply because the developer wants extra lock-ins, subscription payments or is getting payola to add DRM from media companies. Linux is better because it leaves control over your computer system in your hands. The marketplace would often pay extra for such capabilities-- the fact that Linux is low cost is mostly irrelevant to its success. In the early days of the PC, many corporations didn't know much about computers and trusted companies like Microsoft out of their ignorance, and because the risk was relatively low. Now however, their entire business is running on computers and they now realize that trusting the future of such a critical resource can no longer be left in the hands of others-- they require the control that Linux can give them and Microsoft refuses to.

Microsoft's only way out of this mess is to let go of the OS and focus on products that will run on Linux or other open environments. They'll be dragged kicking and screaming into that though, as they've seen the OS as their core competency (obviously why they have no confidence in themselves-- as it's actually become their core incompetency). It'll happen eventually, as the OS is nothing but an application delivery system and as such must be as fully open and empowering as any common carrier. Microsoft was blindsided by the Internet, and even more so by the need for the open OS-- so much so that they're still blind to its critical importance to the future of computing.

Operative words: restraining competition

Since this is an open standard, how could it possibly restrain competition? Clearly you do not understand how magnimus Microsoft is being in sharing this wonderful document with all of us.

I tried to read that blog entry...

... but I couldn't make any sense of it at all. The summary mentions recent irregularities, but those aren't detailed at all. And the rest of it is incoherent, like the content it links to.

In summary: Please avoid relaying submissions to blog entries, by the blogger who wrote them, without making sure they're not stark raving unreadable. Is there some kind of news buried here about MS's activities on the Swedish OOXML vote? Maybe - but I can't tell from this garbage.

Re:I tried to read that blog entry...

As always, Groklaw [groklaw.net] comes to the rescue.

I also recommend reading the top page [groklaw.net] for info what is happening at other countries.

Dear Sweden...

Dear Sweden,

We needed your NO vote. Microsoft has won their battle by removing your vote entirely, which is probably not what you intended.

Sincerely,
The rest of the (still) Free World.

Re:Does US law apply here?

Where the action occurred is probably of little consequence to US antitrust law; what will matter is the intended and actual effect on US market position. I think its pretty hard to argue that Microsoft isn't pushing for ISO standardization as a way to reinforce (among other things) the US market position of Office, and Allied Tube suggests that the particular means being used may be antitrust violations in that context.

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As I understand it, the anti-trust settlement doesn't address MS market position directly; it address the usage by MS of its position in order to hinder competition.

The past antitrust settlement is not the issue, the issue is liability (in a separate acti

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The actions were in Sweden.

Yeah, but the corporation is in the US. You can't just do anything you want because you do it in a foreign country. Just like you can't not-pay US taxes because you do your business in Sweden... International Law treaties are

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Given the popularity of Bush here, if we'd have more civilians with guns, you'd be facing a new Iraq.

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See... if Bush invades Sweden he'd bring more Freedom. Like, the Freedom to have more guns. So you could defend yourself against the Enemies of Freedom. Enemies like Bush. Its just a vicious circle.

Now if we colonized Sweden we'd dramatically increase

Re:just a thought

isn't that kind of the idea of competition? restrain the competition.

No, the idea of competition is to produce a better product than everyone else so the customers will buy yours in preference.

Anything which restricts the customers' ability to switch between products (format lockin, leveraging existing monopoly platforms, predatory pricing, OEM penalties, etc) is anticompetitive and should be prevented.