Court published Microsoft ruling to Web before stock markets closed

WASHINGTON (AP) - The landmark decision in the Microsoft antitrust trial was supposed to remain secret until after financial markets closed, but the U.S. court quietly published the documents on its Web site nearly 90 minutes before the closing bell.

That discovery by some Internet enthusiasts coincided with a flurry of late-day trading of Microsoft's stock Friday.

Its price, which had been falling most of Friday, immediately ticked upward within moments after the court placed on its Web site the decision that handed Microsoft a huge victory.

Late-day trading peaked just five minutes before markets closed, when $90 million worth of Microsoft shares exchanged hands.

The incident meant tech-savvy Web surfers knew the judge's decision fully one hour before even lawyers for Microsoft and the Justice Department.

A glitch in Internet technology - which was at the heart of the antitrust trial - contributed to the early disclosure.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had intended to provide individual, printed copies of her decisions to Microsoft and government lawyers at 4 p.m., then make her decisions available publicly on the court's Web site a half-hour later.

Those plans, outlined in advance to lawyers and journalists, are commonly invoked by judges in major corporate trials and intended to prevent any manipulation of financial markets.

But electronic timestamps for the court's Internet computer indicate that the decisions were published at 2:40 p.m. Friday to a location on its Internet site called "Opinions/2002/Kotelly,'' which anyone with a Web browser could reach without a password. The rulings, in seven parts, were stored under filenames that included "FinalDecree'' and "StateSettlement.''

Technicians at the court could have made that location effectively invisible to visitors with a simple change to their computer software.

Microsoft traded at $52.22 in the moments before the court posted its rulings; the price climbed as high as $53.12 at 3:40 p.m. - still 20 minutes before anyone was supposed to know the outcome of the antitrust case - then settled to close at $53.

The first public announcement that the Microsoft decisions were available early came at 3:33 p.m., when an editor at Slashdot.org, a Web site for technology experts, published them.

A spokesman, Jamie McCarthy, said an unidentified Slashdot reader sent a tip about the files on the court's Web site at 3:09 p.m.

Records showed that 4,026 people viewed the information on Slashdot before 4 p.m., when the judge's decisions were handed to lawyers in Washington. - AP

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