SDNY Rules in Favor of Chaffetz Lindsey Client IBM

April 2019 –Chaffetz Lindsey’s client, International Business Machines Corporation, recently won judgment on the pleadings terminating a software licensing dispute with defendants Robert Simon and MGV Holdings Inc.  Manhattan federal Judge J. Paul Oetken issued the ruling.

The dispute related to software the defendants had developed many years ago for retail point-of-sales systems IBM sold at the time.  Notwithstanding the parties’ prior settlement of a dispute over the calculation of royalties, defendants alleged that IBM had misallocated revenue between royalty-bearing software licenses and non-royalty-bearing hardware and technical services.  They further claimed that this conduct supported rescission of the previous settlement.  Defendants claimed they were entitled to more than $16 million dollars in allegedly underpaid royalties.

Judge Oetken agreed with Chaffetz Lindsey’s arguments that defendants had no basis to rescind the prior settlement agreement and that the release in that agreement barred the present claims.

The Chaffetz Lindsey team included Peter Chaffetz, Drew Poplinger, David Byowitz and Luke Muhammed (paralegal).  The full order and judgment can be found here.