DISH -VS- VOOM - A Settlement has been reached!
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Some new documents were posted...
I've said this before, but one thing that irks me about this case is that Dish's has asserted privilege, or redacted documents to the point they were worthless, in many of their filings. Meanwhile, Voom has asserted privilege infrequently. Exhibits 438 and 439 were posted showing the number of documents in which Dish claimed were privileged communications. I have no idea why these were introduced into evidence or posted online. Additionally, VOOM's meeting minutes from 1 April 2005 were posted intact (exhibit 440) while Dish's meeting minutes (exhibit 441) were heavily redacted. Seriously, why assert privilege or redact everything in your documents? Voom is a defunct company and they have already posted all the agreements, pre-agreements, financials, etc.
Anyway, I just though this would make for interesting reading. I believe these minutes were from a time in which Voom-Dish had signed a prelimiary agreement and were in the process of negotiating the Affiliation Agreement. Again, I'm not sure why these documents were posted yesterday (i.e., their purpose).
I've said this before, but one thing that irks me about this case is that Dish's has asserted privilege, or redacted documents to the point they were worthless, in many of their filings. Meanwhile, Voom has asserted privilege infrequently. Exhibits 438 and 439 were posted showing the number of documents in which Dish claimed were privileged communications. I have no idea why these were introduced into evidence or posted online. Additionally, VOOM's meeting minutes from 1 April 2005 were posted intact (exhibit 440) while Dish's meeting minutes (exhibit 441) were heavily redacted. Seriously, why assert privilege or redact everything in your documents? Voom is a defunct company and they have already posted all the agreements, pre-agreements, financials, etc.
Anyway, I just though this would make for interesting reading. I believe these minutes were from a time in which Voom-Dish had signed a prelimiary agreement and were in the process of negotiating the Affiliation Agreement. Again, I'm not sure why these documents were posted yesterday (i.e., their purpose).
That sort of stuff weighs heavily on a jury's perception of an entity's honesty.
GaryPen said:
Because one is an ongoing business and has business information it wants kept privileged? That's ridiculous.
You're both right. As an active business, Dish has more reason to invoke privilege for legitimate business reasons, while VOOM does not. Nevertheless, human nature will come into play and it will weigh on the jury's perception of honesty, whether earned or not. Even if someone understands the logical reasoning behind the need for privilege, subconsciously it could have an effect.
My issue is that I do not understand what discussing the terms of the agreement and/or their Dish’s strategy of adding Voom to their HD lineup has to do with privilege - it's all ancient history and is publically assessible information provided to the court by Voom. Certainly they don’t need to redact the meeting/summary email in its entirety - do they? We all know the terms of the agreement and what each party hoped to achieve. Since the court ruled the Affiliation Agreement is vague because it didn’t specifically define the term 'service' and 'spend' in plain language within the confines of the contract, it's the courts job to determine what each party reasonably understood these terms to mean by looking at the reams of documents exchanged as part of each entities due-diligence. This is what the court stated way back in May 2008 when Voom filed an unsuccessful injunction motion to prevent EchoStar/Dish from pulling the plug on Voom. Anyway, the documents posted in evidence include: preliminary agreements, appendices to the affiliation agreement, exchange of financials and account methods, meeting minutes, emails, official correspondence, lots of deposition, etc. Dish has provided a lot of documents claiming privilege, heavily redacted documents (like the posted exhibit), and have been sanctioned for destroying email evidence. I don't understand their legal strategy...unless they have something to hide? Sure, we understand some things are privileged and should be kept secret, but this appears to be excessive.
Especially, if it appears that they redacted more than is necessary for standard business reasons, whether they actually did or not. It is all about perception. And, it does appear they have redacted more than is necessary to protect current business practices. (..other than protecting themselves in this particular lawsuit.)
mike123abc said:
My bet is the jury is told to only know what they are shown in court, not beyond that. Who knows, maybe the strategy is to see if one of the jury is curious about all the supposed "unusual" things and starts to do some public research, then Dish can ask the court to dismiss the case
That was pretty much the same thinking I had yesterday when I read riffjim's post.
I got a new flyer in the mail today advertising a bunch of Horror flicks running on Dish Network... another stab at Voom, me thinks.
I'll have to look at it when I get home ... it might have been HDNetMovies ???
Someone else had to have gotten the same flyer as me.
Someone else had to have gotten the same flyer as me.
I'm too lazy to scan the flyer, but it is Blockbuster Studio, Channel 102, every Saturday and Sunday in October from 8pm-2am EST.
