Antitrust

A U.S. appeals court Wednesday upheld the government's antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp. and rejected appeals for tougher remedies, handing a major victory to the world's largest software maker. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia turned down appeals from the state of Massachusetts and two high-tech industry groups that could have led to a redesign of the company's Windows operating system.

Veteran music-television executive Don Cornelius complained in a letter to the U.S. Justice Department Tuesday that Viacom Inc.'s MTV cable channel is violating antitrust laws by restricting artists who perform on its "Video Music Awards." The letter accused MTV of pressuring acts booked for the awards show to skip opportunities to perform on other programs, such as Cornelius' "Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards" program.

Federal regulators on Wednesday accused Intel Corp. of abusing its market dominance to stifle competition in a lawsuit that, instead of seeking monetary damages, would impose more painful, fundamental changes on the way the world's leading computer chip maker does business. The suit by the Federal Trade Commission reaches further than any of the other regulatory cases brought in recent years against Intel, which commands about 81% of the world's market for central processing units, the brains of computers and other electronic gear.

The NFL players, like football fans everywhere, will be focused on the playoffs this month and the fierce competition for a spot in the Super Bowl. Their lawyers, however, will be keeping an eye on the Supreme Court. On Jan. 13, the pro football owners will be asking the high court to rule for the first time that the NFL is shielded from antitrust laws because, while its teams compete on the playing field, they function in business as a "single entity." If the justices were to agree, the ramifications could be significant, not just for football but all pro sports leagues, say experts in sports law. Freed from the antitrust laws, owners could get together to restrict salaries for players and coaches and raise prices for everything from tickets to stocking caps.

Microsoft Corp. appealed a $357-million antitrust fine by European Union regulators. The European Commission, the EU's antitrust authority in Brussels, had penalized Microsoft in July for flouting an order to license information to rivals on how the company's Windows software communicates over a network. The appeal was filed with the European Court of First Instance, the EU's second-highest court.

The Supreme Court ruled that foreign companies cannot pursue antitrust claims in this country against overseas businesses for harmful transactions outside the United States. By an 8-0 vote, the justices in a price-fixing case involving a global cartel set aside a U.S. appeals court ruling that foreign buyers can bring a U.S. antitrust lawsuit against foreign firms if they can show that U.S. commerce was affected.

A federal appeals court rejected charges that Network Solutions Inc., the company that registers most Internet addresses, had violated antitrust laws by failing to expand the pool of Net locations. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling last year that the Herndon, Va., firm did nothing wrong when it refused to add Internet domains to the existing system that includes .com, .org and .net.

West Virginia settled its antitrust claims against Microsoft Corp., abandoning its appeal for tougher penalties against the software company. The pullout leaves just Massachusetts continuing the courtroom battle. The holdout states had asked for tougher sanctions than those included in a settlement between Microsoft, the Justice Department and 17 other states.

Federal prosecutors will seek to retry Japan's Nippon Paper Industries Co. on antitrust charges even though the company's landmark Boston federal court trial ended with a hung jury earlier this week, officials said. The announcement by the Justice Department could set up a replay of the trial against Nippon, which is accused of conspiring in 1990 with other Japanese paper makers to fix prices of thermal fax paper in the U.S. An attorney for Nippon, Alan M.