The battlefields

Following are some areas where the federal government and the high-technology industry have clashed in recent months.

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Securities litigation
As high-technology markets have become increasingly volatile, shareholders have begun suing companies in greater numbers, often claiming that they had received misleading corporate information. The industry contends that it has been besieged with so-called strike suits sometimes filed only because a company's stock price dropped. High-tech firms lobbied for more than three years for regulations designed to reduce "frivolous" suits, resulting in passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. President Clinton, under pressure from trial lawyers and consumer groups, vetoed the legislation, but that action was overridden by Congress at the end of last year. In what was widely viewed as a public concession, however, the president opposed Proposition 211, a California initiative on the November ballot that would make it easier for investors in that state to sue companies.