At a June 21, 1995 meeting that later became central to the U.S. government's antitrust case, Microsoft executives allegedly proposed that the upstart Netscape divide the web-browser market — ceding the Windows 95 market to Microsoft in exchange for being left alone elsewhere — and signaled consequences if it refused. Netscape's account, supported by co-founder Marc Andreessen's contemporaneous notes and CEO Jim Barksdale's testimony, framed the overture as an illegal attempt to carve up a market; Microsoft disputed that characterization and accused Netscape and prosecutors of staging a 'setup.' Occurring under Bill Gates's leadership, the episode came to symbolize the hardball tactics that triggered United States v. Microsoft.