Delta Air Lines Inc (NYSE: DAL) has engaged renowned attorney David Boies to pursue damages from CrowdStrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: CRWD) and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) following a global outage that caused widespread disruption and financial loss.
David Boies, chairman of Boies Schiller Flexner, is notable for representing the U.S. government in its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft and for overturning California's ban on gay marriage.
He has also represented Harvey Weinstein and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, reported CNBC.
The incident, attributed to a software update from CrowdStrike, led to millions of computers crashing and thousands of flight cancellations.
The software update on July 19 resulted in a historic outage of Microsoft systems, severely affecting numerous industries, especially airlines. The Department of Transportation is investigating Delta due to the extensive flight disruptions and service failures.
Delta plans to seek compensation from Microsoft and CrowdStrike, although no lawsuit has been filed yet.
The outages have reportedly cost Delta between $350 million to $500 million. The airline is processing over 176,000 refund or reimbursement requests after nearly 7,000 flights were canceled.
Insurance startup Parametrix estimated the total loss for Fortune 500 companies at $5.4 billion due to the CrowdStrike incident, excluding Microsoft's losses.
Price Action: DAL shares are trading higher by 1.09% at $43.50 at last check Tuesday.