In its ongoing war with the EC, which makes the 100 years war look like a brief argument outside a pub at kicking out time, Microsoft has, in addition to running to mummy, sought discovery against Sun computers & the Oracle database company. The EU wouldn’t allow the introduction of documents that would have helped them because they were confidential, so Microsoft sought to subpoena them in the US and then introduce them into the EC hearing so that the were then ‘confidentiality laundered’.
Geeklawyer’s eye was drawn to the judgment part where US District Judge Patricia Trumbull dismissed it with some severity:
“As a matter of comity, this court is unwilling to order discovery when doing so will interfere with the European Commission’s orderly handling of its own enforcement proceedings.”
Geeklawyer was amused since the ‘comity’ theory of the enforcement of judgements under private international law was, in the UK at least, regarded as somewhat quaint and not at all the basis of enforcement any more.
Always good to see Microsoft get a kicking though…
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