As had been expected following the passage of the CLOUD Act by Congress last month, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded and ordered the dismissal of the pending United States v. Microsoft Corporation, Inc. case in a per curiam decision issued April 17, 2018.
After briefly reviewing the basis for its grant of certiorari in the case, the Court explained that “no live dispute remains between the parties over the issue with respect to which certiorari was granted” and therefore the case is now moot. In support of that conclusion, the Court noted that the CLOUD Act amended the Stored Communications Act (SCA) to address production of wire and electronic communication records without regard to whether such records are located within or outside of the United States, and that the government had subsequently obtained a new SCA warrant under the CLOUD Act seeking production of Microsoft records stored in Ireland.
The Court therefore vacated the underlying decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in favor of Microsoft. The Court further remanded the case to the Second Circuit with instructions to vacate the district court’s contempt finding against Microsoft, and denial of Microsoft’s motion to quash the original SCA warrant, and then to order the district court to dismiss the case as moot.
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