Microsoft and U.S. Agree to Speed Case

Microsoft Corp. and the Justice Department have agreed to speed up their historic antitrust battle in a move that could allow the Supreme Court to decide by September whether to hear the case directly or send it to a federal appeals court.

In a letter to the nation’s highest court Thursday, Solicitor Gen. Seth Waxman said that Microsoft will file its appeal by July 26, and that government lawyers will file their response by Aug. 15.

Without that schedule, Microsoft would have had until Aug. 14 to file its appeal of a federal judge’s order requiring Microsoft to be split into two companies. The government would have had a month to respond.

Microsoft’s appeal will urge the justices to send the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Justice Department wants the Supreme Court to hear the case directly, under a federal law that allows major antitrust disputes to skip the appeals court step and move from a trial court to the Supreme Court.

The law gives the Supreme Court the choice of taking on the case directly or sending it to the appeals court.

Thursday’s action means the Supreme Court could announce that choice as early as mid-September--about a month earlier than usual.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson invoked the expediting law Monday when he sent the case to the Supreme Court. In a surprise move, Jackson delayed implementing various conduct restrictions he had imposed in the June 7 decision requiring Microsoft’s breakup.