Microsoft has been ordered to pay punitive damages of $1 million to a tiny Connecticut software company for engaging in "wanton, reckless" and deceptive business practices.
US District Judge Janet Hall ordered the payment to Bristol Technology in the biggest award ever imposed under Connecticut's fairtrade statute.
Mr Keith Blackwell, chief executive of the Connecticut-based Bristol, said yesterday: "The court's opinion is a victory for Bristol, but more importantly, for consumers."
A spokesman for Microsoft, which is embroiled in an anti-trust suit with the federal government, said the software giant will likely appeal.
Judge Hall's ruling came just over a year after a federal jury awarded privately held Bristol nominal damages of only $1 following a six-week civil trial. Bristol had alleged that Microsoft violated US anti-trust law by refusing to negotiate a new contract for Windows source code.
On July 16th last year an eight-member jury found that Microsoft had not violated anti-trust law but found it liable for violating Connecticut business law and awarded the $1.
Although the Bristol case was not related to the Justice Department lawsuit against Microsoft, it made the similar claim that the software giant had used its monopoly in the market for desktop operating systems to crush competition.
In adding some $999,999 to the jury's original award, the judge "has come down on Bristol's side with every fact we presented," Ms Jean Blackwell, Bristol's co-founder said.
Bristol, founded in a basement in 1991 by brothers Keith and Ken Blackwell and Keith's wife, Jean Blackwell, filed its original suit on August 18th 1998.
Bristol makes a product called Wind/U, which acts as a bridge between developers writing software for computers based both on Microsoft's Windows and Unix.
Bristol's original contract to license Microsoft source code - the blueprint that tells computer programmers how a software programme works - expired in 1997.
Bristol claimed it was victimised by Microsoft's supposed "Trojan horse" strategy of gaining a foothold in the server and workstation markets, and then killing off competition from the Unix operating systems in those markets.
