Delta Air Lines has enlisted renowned attorney David Boies to pursue damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft after an outage earlier this month caused millions of computers to crash, leading to thousands of flight cancellations.
CrowdStrike’s shares dropped up to 5% in extended trading on Monday following a report by CNBC’s Phil Lebeau about Delta’s decision to hire Boies, chairman of Boies Schiller Flexner. Microsoft’s stock was relatively unaffected.
On July 19, a software update from CrowdStrike triggered a significant outage of Microsoft systems, disrupting numerous industries, with airlines being particularly affected. The Department of Transportation announced last week that it is investigating Delta due to widespread flight disruptions and service failures.
CrowdStrike’s stock plummeted nearly 25% over two trading days amid concerns about the company’s business following the incident.
Although no lawsuit has been filed yet, Delta intends to seek compensation from Microsoft and CrowdStrike, according to Lebeau. Delta has not responded to a request for comment.
The outages have cost Delta an estimated $350 million to $500 million, with the airline dealing with over 176,000 refund or reimbursement requests after nearly 7,000 flights were canceled.
David Boies is known for representing the U.S. government in its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft and for helping overturn California’s ban on gay marriage. He also worked with Harvey Weinstein, the imprisoned former Hollywood mogul, and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who is currently serving a prison sentence for defrauding investors.
Insurance startup Parametrix estimated that the CrowdStrike incident resulted in a total loss of $5.4 billion for Fortune 500 companies, excluding Microsoft.
