Register: [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/24/microsoft_makes_millionaire/|Everyone has his price]:

Microsoft has paid almost $10m directly to the top official of the Computer and Communications Industry Association as part of its settlement with the trade group.

The CCIA has been a longtime critic of Microsoft but the two reached agreement earlier this month. Microsoft paid $19.75m to the group which promised to drop its support for EC antitrust action. In return the CCIA withdrew a complaint it made to the European Commission and stopped supporting the regulator's antitrust legal action against the software giant. Ed Black, CCIA president, was previously a harsh critic of Microsoft - in 2001 he described the firm's behaviour as "consistently, constantly illegal".
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As part of the settlement earlier this month Black was personally paid $9.75m, according to documents obtained by the Financial Times. The CCIA board approved the one-off bonus payment and a three-year contract with a salary of $500,000.