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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The corporate lawyers I have worked with are cautious and careful. The first principle of litigation, according by a senior UK barrister, is not to threaten it unless you are fully prepared to go through with your threat.

The fanatical "I sense heresey... bring in the flamethrower!!!" approach tends not to work so well in real life.

czakk wrote:
The jackboot comment was a bit tongue in cheek.

Typically over here a 'dawn raid' doesn't require judicial authorization (you don't have to go to a judge to justify your actions and get a warrant) and you also don't get certain basic human rights, like the right to remain silent if questioned. They are a fairly extreme measure and in my field you have to know how to deal with say, the tax man knocking on your client's door demanding all their papers (or worse, knocking on your door demanding all of your working papers). All part of protecting what few rights your client has at that point. Usually limited to claiming privilege on certain documents at that point.

All that said, and as you mentioned, you don't highlight being able to deal with raids as a skill unless you work for a certain sort. Your compliance strategy for a client shouldn't involve planning to stymie regulatory investigations (cause generally that's illegal other than fixing document retention policies, and basics like, having an audit team ready to help the investigators get in and out with copies of documents and files so as to have as little disruption to the business as possible).

Fair 'nuff
About that basic human rights thingy though: you do realise these are not criminal, but either fiscal, (other)private or administrative matters and I don't think any significant place in the west recognizes a "right" to remain silent in non-criminal matters, right?


As to what Kilkrazy says: any member of the bar, anyplace, any time, has to adhere to certain ethical rules. Now I'm not all that well-versed in how *precisely* those run in weird common-law jurisdictions but I do know there's a similar-to-ours requirement to have a good faith basis for a claim. Basic due diligence in assuring a claim has at least some merit is a bare-bones basic requirement for that. For all intents and purposes, not doing that is just malice, if only by "virtue" of not giving a damn about the ethical obligations of your profession. So while I'm usually a big fan of attribution to incompetence in case of doubt, not here. Just, no. There seems to have been significant culpable negligence on GW-legal's part here, as far as I can ascertain.

It's good practice.

GW showed in this case what happens if you go into litigation without valid evidence to back up your claims.

You lose.

So have we gotten the results of the appeal, or is it still on-going?

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
So have we gotten the results of the appeal, or is it still on-going?

Things are in a holding pattern because the case was kicked to a settlement conference. So any appeals, and any decisions on the various motions wait until the results of the settlement conference.

If things do settle, we will not get to see the details.

czakk wrote:

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
So have we gotten the results of the appeal, or is it still on-going?

Things are in a holding pattern because the case was kicked to a settlement conference. So any appeals, and any decisions on the various motions wait until the results of the settlement conference.

If things do settle, we will not get to see the details.

Seeing as CHS is so far ahead in this case, do you feel they have any reason to settle? Unless that settlement involved GW buying them off/out.

I don't see how GW could hope to come out ahead at this point.

We may not see the details, but we'll know a settlement was reached, right?

rigeld2 wrote:
We may not see the details, but we'll know a settlement was reached, right?

I believe the fact of settlement is always public information, but almost always the details of those settlements(that I've seen) have been private with very strict gag orders tied to them.

Sure - I'm familiar with NDAs.
But we should be able to see any immediate effect on CHs web store. The things we would t see are licensing fees or him having to get "approval" on new products.

Not that I think any of that would happen, but some things that are the results of settlements are obvious.

...Except with the way this case has gone, there's really just no way that CHS would rationally agree to licensing fees or up-front approval (especially that last one, knowing how typically reasonable GW legal tends to be). Aerethan is right that the details would, in all likelihood, be closely guarded.

If I were a gambling man though, I'd bet against a settlement. There's too little GW can realistically expect to win on appeal to barter with and both CHS and their attorneys stand to win significantly by carrying this one through. (setting precedent on appeal is quite enticing to the attorneys involved by this point is what we were all guessing, so as long as there's no conflict of interest I'd be flabberghasted if they took anything but the most ridiculously favourable settlement).

rigeld2 wrote:
Sure - I'm familiar with NDAs.
But we should be able to see any immediate effect on CHs web store. The things we would t see are licensing fees or him having to get "approval" on new products.

Not that I think any of that would happen, but some things that are the results of settlements are obvious.

One thing that may be noticeable from a settlement would be the removal of all the claimed trademarks that GW lost from the CHS site. That is one of those things that I'd imagine they'd be paying for, as CHS has no other reason to remove them.

I maintain that CHS has no reason to settle unless GW is paying them some substantial amount of money to go away, which they likely could have done quietly in the first place.

GW very much could have bought out CHS before this suit, had NDA's in place so no one knew why they closed, and saved themselves a ton of trouble and mess. Instead, they are out the money, the legal weight, and a ton of asserted marks and copyrights, while CHS is out 25k and the non pro bono costs from the suit, all of which is pennies on the dollar to GW's cost.

But unfortunately not pennies on the floor for a small company such as Chapter House.

GW's tactics remind me of Steve Job's 'Thermonuclear War'* on Google Android... and looks to be working out just as well for GW as it did for Apple.

The case cost CHS a great deal less than it cost GW, but was still expensive.

The Auld Grump

*It is a bad sign when a company tries to block the use of their founder's biography from being used against them in a court of law....

The difference being Apple has been pretty reasonable trademark/patent wise, the one excess was vs samsung and that's a design rights claim (and really, whoever came up with that class of IP law ought to be shot on sight) anyway.

...Aaanyway, let's not derail this any further

 Bolognesus wrote:
The difference being Apple has been pretty reasonable trademark/patent wise, the one excess was vs samsung and that's a design rights claim (and really, whoever came up with that class of IP law ought to be shot on sight) anyway.

...Aaanyway, let's not derail this any further

Ummm, you do know that 'Thermonuclear War' was a quote from Jobs himself? And that Apple has tried to block Job's own statements from being used in evidence, right?

In the words of Google's CEO - ‘How well is that working?’

And there actually is a connected reason to bring it up - the stupider strategies from Apple came from the top down - Jobs... was about on a par with Kirby in some respects. (As another example - his 'Akido move' in regards to e-books. Oops... turns out that e-book price fixing is still price fixing, and illegal... even if you are Steve Jobs.)

Also - I am talking here more about Jobs - Kirby than Apple - GW. Though both companies were/are being affected by the top tier of management.

Like GW, iOS is losing market share - the iPhone is still likely the largest single seller for smart phones, but the market is growing faster than the iPhone's share.

Jobs and Kirby each surrounded themselves with a group of people that tailored their world view to match that of their boss.

Both are/were too emotionally involved to rationally approach an IP problem.

Both sought a 'scorched earth' policy - GW wanting CHS to sell off all machinery and materials for the creation of miniatures, Jobs with the infamous quote:
‘Google, you ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.” “Grand theft. … I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

GW spent how much in pursuit of closing down CHS?

A willingness to damage their own companies in pursuit of... welll... what is likely an indefensible IP.

Both are/were taking economic stances based more upon ego than upon a sustainable scenario.

Apple is big enough, and more importantly broad enough to survive such shenanigans, though not undamaged. (Plus, you know, that whole 'Jobs is dead' thing....)

GW... we will see.

So, yes, there was a reason that I brought Jobs into the discussion.

The Auld Grump

To be fair on that jobs quote though, given the history of android development he had a point. That's one difference at least.

And really, pretty much any company that size has been fined for anticompetitive practices by now, if only because regulation is finally starting to work effectively. That's hardly on the level of cutting one limb to spite the other.

I doubt that Jobs had a point, given that the iPhone (and iPod and iPad) were merely an evolution of existing products, just with shinier advertising.

Do we know when the settlement conference is due to go ahead?

The last one was the 16th of September, with another meeting to be scheduled. Haven't seen an update about that.

czakk wrote:

She was GWs head legal beagle and I believe the architect of their ip enforcement strategy. We don't know if she was in charge of this particular litigation, or dreamed up its strategy, but she would be the person giving the US attorneys their marching orders.

The fact that she left could be an indication of how successful this chapterhouse lawsuit is viewed internally at GW and the fact that she did not have a lateral position lined up could be an indication that her departure was not planned. Middle age lawyers don't up and quit without a job lined up.

She was at counsel table during the trial, don't forget; not Andy Jones, not Alan Merrett, not Tom Kirby, but Gill Stevenson. She was GW's representative, basically GW's only meaningful in-house lawyer, and the obvious fall guy for when the case inevitably blew up in GW's face, which is probably why it was her at counsel table while Alan Merrett sat in the gallery. She was expendable. GW wasn't going to get rid of a long-term, face-up-butt employee like Andy Jones or Alan Merrett, but Gill they could take their aggression out on. If you look up several pages, I predicted Gill would get fired. This comes as no surprise, really.

BUT, it does suggest how acutely GW considers its performance in this case to be an utter failure. GW could be trying to make someone pay, but it is ultimately both useless and petulant to blame Gill Stevenson. Gill deserves to lose her job, of course, because she never should have gone to work for GW in the first place, but it is meaningless for GW to dismiss her because she A) was blindly doing everything others told her to do which is what GW demands of an employee, and B) was set up as the fall guy a year before the trial date.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
We may not see the details, but we'll know a settlement was reached, right?

I believe the fact of settlement is always public information, but almost always the details of those settlements(that I've seen) have been private with very strict gag orders tied to them.

The parties have to request permission to dismiss a case, so you always know if a case was settled. You may not know why or how, but you at least know that the parties jointly requested to dismiss the case.

weeble1000 wrote:
[
Oh, she got fired. She got fired BIG TIME.

Someone sounds in the know...

.....but it is ultimately both useless and petulant to blame Gil Stevenson. Gil deserves to lose her job, of course, because she never should have gone to work for GW in the first place, but it is meaningless for GW to dismiss her because she A) was blindly doing everything others told her to do which is what GW demands of an employee, and B) was set up as the fall guy a year before the trial date.

Are we looking at an Industrial Tribunal here? Could be fun.

Cheers

Andrew

Andrew,

You don't need to be "in the know." Do you think it makes more sense that Gil up and decided to leave GW, without lining up another job first (people who have a job lined up tend to not self describe as "looking for a new opportunity"), while an appeal on a case she has worked for three+ years is hanging in the air, and in the middle of ongoing settlement negotiations?

Gil is essentially GW's only lawyer. She's the general, all purpose corporate counsel. She was just managing a million dollar lawsuit of unprecedented size in her employer's history that utterly failed to achieve its sole objective.

Sure, maybe she decided to quit for funzies in the middle of a recession with record unemployment.

The logical inference is that her decision to look for new opportunities was somewhat less than voluntary. You don't need inside knowledge to work that out.

could have just been a sarcastic remark akin the type of response one ought to expect about someone making an observation that an orange is orange....

I'm interested in seeing how the case develops from here, and whether we can expect a new type of behaviour from old gee dubb. Frankly, I'm surprised GW's not been fired as a client by this point.

edit: unless there's already been a development I've somehow chosen to miss?

Generally speaking, lawyers don't have any clients don't go around firing the one client they do have.

"Games Workshop is looking for a lawyer with no backbone, no common sense and no scruples to help us gaining the copyright on everything under the sun, whatever the law, the law institutions or the original copyright holder say. Please only serious applications!"

Weeble, Poda, no sarcasm intended. It was the use of the capital letters for BIG TIME that drew my attention. It sounded to me like it was a case of "I know something that you don't."

I have seen people walk out of a post to avoid dismissal and so not have a termination on their CV. Heart, does on occasion override head.

I was always under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that this case was being run by corporate rather than legal section at GW and that she was simply a yes (wo)man.

Her being sacked for their incompetence just seems ripe for an unfair or constructive dismissal.

Cheers

Andrew

A £130 million corporation needs a good in house legal team with the skills to hire and manage specialist help for different jurisdictions and purposes.

Reading between the lines, part of the problem at GW was the "group think" culture that allowed the head of USA to go off on one without anyone telling him his ideas were legally weak. So GW need a new head of legal who can stand up to the possible bullying from know-nothing managers.

GW also need to do a house-cleaning and make sure all of their loose ends are tied up -- all the artwork properly licensed, all the copyrights registered, and so on. I think this is going ahead now, as a result of the cock-ups exposed in the Chapter House case. I also hope they have had a shock to their group-think mindset.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
So GW need a new head of legal who can stand up to the possible bullying from know-nothing managers.

And yet I'd bet a shiny new army (at Aus prices even ) that the next head of legal will be just another yes (wo)man because that's all GW want in an employee.

Something about Attitude over Skills, or something like that...

 Kroothawk wrote:
"Games Workshop is looking for a lawyer with no backbone, no common sense and no scruples to help us gaining the copyright on everything under the sun, whatever the law, the law institutions or the original copyright holder say. Please only serious applications!"

Willingness to fall on a 28mm plastic power sword post-failure is considered a plus.

 AndrewC wrote:
Weeble, Poda, no sarcasm intended. It was the use of the capital letters for BIG TIME that drew my attention. It sounded to me like it was a case of "I know something that you don't."

I have seen people walk out of a post to avoid dismissal and so not have a termination on their CV. Heart, does on occasion override head.

I was always under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that this case was being run by corporate rather than legal section at GW and that she was simply a yes (wo)man.

Her being sacked for their incompetence just seems ripe for an unfair or constructive dismissal.

Cheers

Andrew

But even though she was a "yes (wo)man" it does not mean that she can't be blamed for the lawsuit. She was senior legal counsel. It was her department. It was her responsibility to advise her employer, to stay within her budget, to protect the interests of the company, etc. etc.

This kind of crap happens. And I'm not drawing any distinction between fired, left voluntarily, encouraged to resign, etc. The effect is absolutely the same. Games Workshop decided that her services were no longer desired, almost certainly due to the Chapterhouse Studios lawsuit. By fired "BIG TIME" I meant that she was held responsible for what Games Workshop probably considers to be a disaster. Was it fair, was it reasonable? How fair and reasonable does Games Workshop behave?

There are precious few reasonable reasons why Gill Stevenson should have wanted to leave GW at this precise moment. Maybe she grew a conscience and couldn't live with what she had been told to do for the past...14 years. Do you really believe that? Maybe she stayed on just to finish up the trial, always planning to seek new employment. Okay, well why leave without finding a new job first?

Gill was fired. She was fired BIG TIME. Even if she wasn't fired on paper, she was fired/sacked/dismissed/driven out/asked to leave/forced to resign. It is exceedingly reasonable to infer that Gill took the fall for the Chapterhouse lawsuit.

Why do you think it wasn't Alan Roy Merrett sitting at counsel table through that trial? He was in Chicago. He was in the gallery. He was not at counsel table. The person at that table was the person eating the eventual blame if the case went south.

Now, normally in a corporation, senior corporate counsel will cover her posterior. Gill did that. She hired expensive outside counsel, for example, and threw gobs of money at the case. Traditionally, that's a way for corporate counsel to defer blame. "Look, you told me to sue that guy. Well, I hired the best lawyers and we worked the crap out of the case. I did my job. I hired the best, we spent tons of money, and we lost. It isn't because I did something wrong. I did what you told me to do."

Now, that brings into sharp relief the context of her leaving Games Workshop. Gill is not what I would call "easily replaceable." She took steps to cover her butt. And she ate the blame nonetheless. Thus, one can reasonably infer that Games Workshop feels that filing the lawsuit in the first place was a critical error. It is in this context that a corporation goes headhunting in the in house legal department. It is in this context that senior in house counsel get's asked, "Why the Hell didn't you say this was a terrible idea in the first place?"

Is it irrational? Sure. Is Gill getting blamed for doing what she was expected to do, for doing what she would have gotten fired for not doing? Absolutely. But the irrationality of it does not mean it did not happen. Games Workshop has a long, proven track record of making irrational decisions, and the alternatives are simply less than plausible.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
A £130 million corporation needs a good in house legal team with the skills to hire and manage specialist help for different jurisdictions and purposes.

Reading between the lines, part of the problem at GW was the "group think" culture that allowed the head of USA to go off on one without anyone telling him his ideas were legally weak. So GW need a new head of legal who can stand up to the possible bullying from know-nothing managers.

GW also need to do a house-cleaning and make sure all of their loose ends are tied up -- all the artwork properly licensed, all the copyrights registered, and so on. I think this is going ahead now, as a result of the cock-ups exposed in the Chapter House case. I also hope they have had a shock to their group-think mindset.

Exactly. But the really important bit is Games Workshop admitting that it was a cock-up.

 Alpharius wrote:
Something about Attitude over Skills, or something like that...