EU court gives Microsoft case to panel of judges

The European Union's second highest court has taken the Microsoft antitrust case away from the judge to whom it was originally…

The European Union's second highest court has taken the Microsoft antitrust case away from the judge to whom it was originally assigned and given it to a panel of 13 judges, a court official said yesterday.

Judge Hubert Legal, who had been in charge of a panel of five judges handling the case, will no longer participate, a court official said.

Sources have said Judge Legal was removed, because he wrote a controversial article that angered fellow judges.

The European Commission found in March 2004 that Microsoft competed unfairly against rivals, fined it €497 million and ordered it to change some business practices.

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Now the 13-judge panel will decide whether to uphold the commission's decision or reject all or part of it.

In the past those familiar with the case have estimated that a change in judges may lead to a delay of anything between three months and a year beyond June, 2006, when a decision on the case had originally been expected to be made.

Meanwhile, a German court convicted a teenager who wrote the Sasser internet worm and knocked out an estimated one million computers in homes and businesses across the world.

The court in the northwestern German town of Verden gave Sven Jaschan (19) a suspended jail sentence of one year and nine months after finding him guilty of computer sabotage.

Jaschan was also ordered to do community service.

The court said Jaschan worked with "mischievous delight" to create new, better and faster versions of the worm, which crippled Microsoft Windows operating systems in May, 2004.

Described as a "computer freak", Jaschan pleaded guilty to charges of data manipulation, computer sabotage and interfering with public services.