Internal Antitrust Compliance. This section shall remain in effect throughout the term of
this Final Judgment.
a. Within 30 days after the effective date of this Final Judgment, Microsoft shall
establish a Compliance Committee of its corporate Board of Directors, consisting
of not fewer than three members of the Board of Directors who are not present or
former employees of Microsoft.
b. The Compliance Committee shall hire a Chief Compliance Officer, who shall
report directly to the Compliance Committee and to the Chief Executive Officer
of Microsoft.
c. The Chief Compliance Officer shall be responsible for development and
supervision of Microsoft's internal programs to ensure compliance with the
antitrust laws and this Final Judgment.
d. Microsoft shall give the Chief Compliance Officer sufficient authority and
resources to discharge the responsibilities listed herein.
e. The Chief Compliance Officer shall
i. within 30 days after entry of this Final Judgment, cause to be delivered to
each Microsoft officer, director, and manager, and each platform software
developer and employee involved in relations with OEMs, ISVs, or IHVs,
a copy of this Final Judgment together with additional informational
materials describing the conduct prohibited and required by this Final
Judgment;
ii. distribute in a timely manner a copy of this Final Judgment and such
additional informational materials to any person who succeeds to a
position of officer, director, or manager, or platform software developer or
employee involved in relations with OEMs, ISVs, or IHVs;
iii. obtain from each officer, director, and manager, and each platform
software developer and employee involved in relations with OEMs, ISVs,
or IHVs, within 60 days of entry of this Final Judgment, and for each
person thereafter succeeding to such a position within 5 days of such
succession, a written certification that he or she:
(1) has read, understands, and agrees to abide by the terms of this
Final Judgment; and
(2) has been advised and understands that his or her failure to comply
with this Final Judgment may result in conviction for criminal
contempt of court;
iv. maintain a record of persons to whom this Final Judgment has been
distributed and from whom, pursuant to Section 4(e)(iii), such
certifications have been obtained;
v. establish and maintain a means by which employees can report potential
violations on a confidential basis; and
vi. report immediately to Plaintiffs and the Court any violation of this Final
Judgment.
f. The Chief Compliance Officer may be removed only by the Chief Executive
Officer with the concurrence of the Compliance Committee.
g. Microsoft shall, with the supervision of the Chief Compliance Officer, maintain
for a period of at least four years the e-mail of all Microsoft officers, directors and
managers engaged in software development, marketing, sales and developer
relations related to Platform Software.
5. Compliance Inspection. This section shall remain in effect throughout the term of this
Final Judgment.
a. For purposes of determining or securing implementation of or compliance with
this Final Judgment, including the provisions requiring a plan of reorganization,
or determining whether this Final Judgment should be modified or vacated, and
subject to any legally recognized privilege, from time to time:
i. Duly authorized representatives of a Plaintiff, upon the written request of
the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the
United States Department of Justice, or the Attorney General of a Plaintiff
State, as the case may be, and on reasonable notice to Microsoft made to
its principal office, shall be permitted:
(1) Access during office hours to inspect and copy or, at Plaintiffs' option,
demand Microsoft provide copies of all books, ledgers, accounts,
correspondence, memoranda, source code, and other records and
documents in the possession or under the control of Microsoft (which
may have counsel present), relating to the matters contained in this Final
Judgment; and
(2) Subject to the reasonable convenience of Microsoft and without
restraint or interference from it, to interview, either informally or on the
record, its officers, employees, and agents, who may have their individual
counsel present, regarding any such matters.
ii. Upon the written request of the Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, or the
Attorney General of a Plaintiff State, as the case may be, made to
Microsoft at its principal offices, Microsoft shall submit such written
reports, under oath if requested, as may be requested with respect to any
matter contained in this Final Judgment.
iii. No information or documents obtained by the means provided in this
Article shall be divulged by a representative of a Plaintiff to any person
other than a duly authorized representative of a Plaintiff, except in the
course of legal proceedings to which the Plaintiff is a party (including
grand jury proceedings), or for the purpose of securing compliance with
this Final Judgment, or as otherwise required by law.
iv. If at the time information or documents are furnished by Microsoft to a
Plaintiff, Microsoft represents and identifies in writing the material in any
such information or documents to which a claim of protection may be
asserted under Rule 26(c)(7) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and
Microsoft marks each pertinent page of such material, "Subject to claim of
protection under Rule 26(c)(7) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,"
then ten (10) calendar days notice shall be given by a Plaintiff to Microsoft
prior to divulging such material in any legal proceeding (other than a
grand jury proceeding) to which Microsoft is not a party.
6. Effective Date, Term, Retention of Jurisdiction, Modification
a. This Final Judgment shall take effect 30 days after the date on which it is entered;
provided, however that sections 1.b and 2 (except 2.d) shall be stayed pending
completion of any appeals from this Final Judgment.
b. Except as provided in section 2.d., the provisions of this Final Judgment apply to
Microsoft, the Separated Business, the Remaining Business, their successors and
assigns (including any transferee or assignee of any ownership rights to, control
of, or ability to license the patents referred to in this Final Judgment), their
subsidiaries, affiliates, directors, officers, managers, agents, and employees, and
all other persons in active concert or participation with any of them who shall
have received actual notice of this Final Judgment by personal service or
otherwise.
c. This Final Judgment shall expire at the end of ten years from the date on which it
takes effect.
d. The Court may act sua sponte to issue orders or directions for the construction or
carrying out of this Final Judgment, for the enforcement of compliance therewith,
and for the punishment of any violation thereof.
e. Jurisdiction is retained by this Court for the purpose of enabling any of the parties
to this Final Judgment to apply to this Court at any time for such further orders or
directions as may be necessary or appropriate for the construction or carrying out
of this Final Judgment, for the modification of any of the provisions hereof, for
the enforcement of compliance herewith, and for the punishment of any violation
hereof.
f. In accordance with the Court's Conclusions of Law, the plaintiff States shall
submit a motion for costs and fees, with supporting documents as necessary, no
later than 45 days after the entry of this Final Judgment.
7. Definitions.
a. "Agreement" means any agreement, arrangement, alliance, understanding, or joint
venture, whether written or oral.
b. "Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)" means the interfaces, service
provider interfaces, and protocols that enable a hardware device or an application,
Middleware, or server Operating System to obtain services from (or provide
services in response to requests from) Platform Software in a Personal Computer
and to use, benefit from, and rely on the resources, facilities, and capabilities of
such Platform Software.
c. "Applications Business" means all businesses carried on by Microsoft
Corporation on the effective date of this Final Judgment except the Operating
Systems Business. Applications Business includes but is not limited to the
development, licensing, promotion, and support of client and server applications
and Middleware (e.g., Office, BackOffice, Internet Information Server, SQL
Server, etc.), Internet Explorer, Mobile Explorer and other web browsers,
Streaming Audio and Video client and server software, Mobile Explorer,
transaction server software, SNA server software, indexing server software, XML
servers and parsers, Microsoft Management Server, Java virtual machines,
Frontpage Express (and other web authoring tools), Outlook Express (and other e-mail clients), Media player, voice recognition software, Net Meeting (and other
collaboration software), developer tools, hardware, MSN, MSNBC, Slate,
Expedia, and all investments owned by Microsoft in partners or joint venturers, or
in ISVs, IHVs, OEMs or other distributors, developers, and promoters of
Microsoft products, or in other information technology or communications
businesses.
d. "Bind" means to include a product in an Operating System Product in such a way
that either an OEM or an end user cannot readily remove or uninstall the product.
e. "Business" means the Operating Systems Business or the Applications Business.
f. "Communications Interfaces" means the interfaces and protocols that enable
software installed on other computers (including servers and handheld devices) to
interoperate with the Microsoft Platform Software on a Personal Computer.
g. "Covered OEM" means the 20 OEMs with the highest volume of sales of
Personal Computers in the United States in the previous 12 months.
h. "Covered Shareholder" means a shareholder of Microsoft on the date of entry of
this Final Judgment who is a present or former employee, officer or director of
Microsoft and who owns directly or beneficially more than 3 percent of the voting
stock of the firm.
i. "Default Middleware" means Middleware configured to launch automatically
(that is, by "default") to provide particular functionality when other Middleware
has not been selected for this purpose. For example, a default browser is
Middleware configured to launch automatically to display Web pages transmitted
over the Internet or an intranet that bear the .htm extension, when other software
has not been selected for this purpose.
j. "End-User Access" means the invocation of Middleware directly or indirectly by
an end user of a Personal Computer or the ability of such an end user to invoke
Middleware. "End-User access" includes invocation of Middleware by end users
which is compelled by the design of the Operating System Product.
k. "IHV" means an independent hardware vendor that develops hardware to be
included in or used with a personal computer.
l. "Implementation of the Plan" means full completion of all of the steps described
in section 1.c.
m. "Intellectual Property" means copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets
used by Microsoft or licensed by Microsoft to third parties.
n. "ISV" means any entity other than Microsoft (or any subsidiary, division, or other
operating unit of any such other entity) that is engaged in the development and
licensing (or other marketing) of software products intended to interoperate with
Microsoft Platform Software.
o. "Middleware" means software that operates, directly or through other software,
between an Operating System and another type of software (such as an
application, a server Operating System, or a database management system) by
offering services via APIs or Communications Interfaces to such other software,
and could, if ported to or interoperable with multiple Operating Systems, enable
software products written for that Middleware to be run on multiple Operating
System Products. Examples of Middleware within the meaning of this Final
Judgment include Internet browsers, e-mail client software, multimedia viewing
software, Office, and the Java Virtual Machine. Examples of software that are not
Middleware within the meaning of this Final Judgment are disk compression and
memory management.
p. "Middleware Product" means
i. Internet browsers, e-mail client software, multimedia viewing software,
instant messaging software, and voice recognition software, or
ii. software distributed by Microsoft that
(1) is, or has in the applicable preceding year been, distributed
separately from an Operating System Product in the retail channel
or through Internet access providers, Internet content providers,
ISVs or OEMs, and
(2) provides functionality similar to that provided by Middleware
offered by a competitor to Microsoft.
q. "Non-Covered Shareholder" means a shareholder of Microsoft who is not a
Covered Shareholder on the date of entry of this Final Judgment.
r. "OEM" means the manufacturer or assembler of a personal computer.
s. "Operating System" means the software that controls the allocation and usage of
hardware resources (such as memory, central processing unit time, disk space, and
peripheral devices) of a computer, providing a "platform" by exposing APIs that
applications use to "call upon" the Operating System's underlying software
routines in order to perform functions.
t. "Operating System Product" means an Operating System and additional software
shipped with the Operating System, whether or not such additional software is
marketed for a positive price. An Operating System Product includes Operating
System Product upgrades that may be distributed separately from the Operating
System Product.
u. "Operating Systems Business" means the development, licensing, promotion, and
support of Operating System Products for computing devices including but not
limited to (i) Personal Computers, (ii) other computers based on Intel x-86 or
competitive microprocessors, such as servers, (iii) handheld devices such as
personal digital assistants and cellular telephones, and (iv) television set-top
boxes.
v. "Personal Computer" means any computer configured so that its primary purpose
is to be used by one person at a time, that uses a video display and keyboard
(whether or not the video display and keyboard are actually included), and that
contains an Intel x86, successor, or competitive microprocessor, and computers
that are commercial substitutes for such computers.
w. "Plaintiff" means the United States or any of the plaintiff States in this action.
x. "Plan" means the final plan of reorganization approved by the Court.
y. "Platform Software" means an Operating System or Middleware or a combination
of an Operating System and Middleware.
z. "Remaining Business" means whichever of the Operating Systems Business and
the Applications Businesses is not transferred to a separate entity pursuant to the
Plan.
aa. "Separated Business" means whichever of the Operating Systems Business and
the Applications Businesses is transferred to a separate entity pursuant to the Plan.
bb. "Technical Information" means all information, regarding the identification and
means of using APIs and Communications Interfaces, that competent software
developers require to make their products running on any computer interoperate
effectively with Microsoft Platform Software running on a Personal Computer.
Technical information includes but is not limited to reference implementations,
communications protocols, file formats, data formats, syntaxes and grammars,
data structure definitions and layouts, error codes, memory allocation and
deallocation conventions, threading and synchronization conventions, functional
specifications and descriptions, algorithms for data translation or reformatting
(including compression/ decompression algorithms and encryption/decryption
algorithms), registry settings, and field contents.
cc. "Timely Manner": disclosure of APIs, Technical Information and
Communications Interfaces in a timely manner means, at a minimum, publication
on a web site accessible by ISVs, IHVs, and OEMs at the earliest of the time that
such APIs, Technical Information, or Communications Interfaces are (1) disclosed
to Microsoft's applications developers, (2) used by Microsoft's own Platform
Software developers in software released by Microsoft in alpha, beta, release
candidate, final or other form, (3) disclosed to any third party, or (4) within 90
days of a final release of a Windows Operating System Product, no less than 5
days after a material change is made between the most recent beta or release
candidate version and the final release.
dd. "Windows Operating System Product" means software code (including source
code and binary code, and any other form in which Microsoft distributes its
Windows Operating Systems for Personal Computers) of Windows 95, Windows
98, Windows 2000 Professional, and their successors, including the Windows
Operating Systems for Personal Computers codenamed "Millennium,"
"Whistler," and "Blackcomb," and their successors.
FOOTNOTE
1. Definitions of capitalized terms are set forth in section 7, below.