DOJ's efforts abroad faulted
Three senators are accusing Justice Department officials of improperly encouraging foreign governments against the software giant.
Penned by Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), Spencer Abraham (R-Michigan), and Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), a six-page letter sent yesterday to Attorney General Janet Reno detailed public and private talks senior antitrust officials have made concerning the Microsoft case to their counterparts abroad.
The complaint is the latest instance of senators and others from the political arena entering the fray between trustbusters and Microsoft. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has been an outspoken critic of Microsoft and has even scheduled a new round of hearings on the company's business practices. (See related story)
Moreover, Microsoft has garnered vocal defenders in Sens. Lauch Faircloth (R-North Carolina) and Slade Gorton (R-Washington), who have attacked the persistent efforts by Hatch and the Justice Department to scrutinize the software giant.
Chief among the concerns expressed by Sessions, Abraham, and Kyl was a visit Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein made to officials with the Japanese Fair Trade Commission in early December. A month later, Japanese officials raided Microsoft's Tokyo office, where according to the letter they "confiscated thousands of pages of documents," including Microsoft agenda planners, phone directories and original paperwork.
The senators also claimed that on May 20, Justice Department official Russell Pittman visited Brazil, where he told senior government officials that "Microsoft behaves like an arrogant monopolist, even acting arrogantly in its relations with the antitrust authorities."
Nine days later, the letter added, a senior official in charge of antitrust enforcement in Brazil said his agency was "starting to explore a way to initiate legal action against Microsoft regarding the integration of Internet Explorer into Windows." The integration issue is at the heart of two separate actions U.S. antitrust enforcers have filed against Redmond.
The letter also catalogues other visits by senior antitrust officials to their counterparts abroad, including those with the Israeli government and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
"Traveling the world criticizing American companies could encourage foreign legal actions that could harm that company to the benefit of foreign competitors," the senators warned. It asked Reno for more information--including the total time and expenditures--devoted to the visits mentioned, as well as any others the senators were not aware of.
"We're grateful that these senators are raising these kinds of issues," said Murray. "We're disappointed that a government agency would try to enlist foreign governments in attacking a successful U.S. company."