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California slashes legal fees in settlement of Microsoft case

By Brier Dudley
Seattle Times technology reporter

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The lawyers requested $258 million in fees but will get $101 million, plus $11.5 million for expenses.

One reason the fee was lowered was because the lawyers relied in part on material the government gathered for its cases against Microsoft, California Superior Court Judge Paul Alvarado said in his Sept. 9 ruling.

The 35 law firms told Alvarado they spent 209,000 hours pursuing the case.

Microsoft asked the judge to give the lawyers even less.

The company will pay the legal fees over and above the $1.1 billion in refunds it's paying Californians who bought its products between 1995 and 2001.

The California case was among dozens filed in the wake of the federal antitrust case against Microsoft in the late 1990s. Most alleged the company overcharged for its products, and most have been settled with the company offering refunds or vouchers.

Californians who bought Microsoft products between 1995 and 2001 are eligible for rebates of $5 to $29. Two-thirds of any unclaimed money will be used to help schools buy computer equipment.

Eugene Crew, a San Francisco attorney whose firm initiated the case in 1999, said he won't appeal the fee ruling.

"The court praised our work and simply disagreed with the degree of risk that we undertook and we respectfully disagree, but that's OK," he said yesterday.

Microsoft also accepts the ruling, said spokeswoman Stacy Drake, who called the award fair. Crew said he won't retire with the proceeds. Last month he filed a similar case on behalf of California municipalities that were excluded from the 1999 suit.
 
Brier Dudley: 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com

Microsoft warns of JPEG flaw

REDMOND — Microsoft said yesterday it has found a new security flaw with its Windows XP operating system.

The flaw is in a technology that is used to render images in the popular JPEG format. It can be exploited only if the user is tricked into opening a specialized file or viewing a specially crafted JPEG image, Microsoft said.

The company released a patch to fix the flaw and a tool that allows users to scan their systems to see if they need it. Users who have downloaded Microsoft's recent security update, Service Pack 2, are not affected.

The vulnerability affects people running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Office. People who have earlier versions of Windows or Office also may be affected if they are running some specialized applications, such as Digital Image Pro or Visio 2002.

The Associated Press