Why is Java's Double.compare(double, double) implemented the way it is?

I was looking at the implementation of compare(double, double) in the Java standard library (6). It reads:

public static int compare(double d1, double d2) {
    if (d1 < d2)
        return -1;       // Neither val is NaN, thisVal is smaller
    if (d1 > d2)
        return 1;        // Neither val is NaN, thisVal is larger

    long thisBits = Double.doubleToLongBits(d1);
    long anotherBits = Double.doubleToLongBits(d2);

    return (thisBits == anotherBits ?  0 : // Values are equal
            (thisBits < anotherBits ? -1 : // (-0.0, 0.0) or (!NaN, NaN)
             1));                          // (0.0, -0.0) or (NaN, !NaN)
}

What are the merits of this implementation?

edit: "Merits" was a (very) bad choice of words. I wanted to know how this works.