The U.S. International Trade Commission terminated Zync Inc.’s trade secrets investigation against Finnegan client BMW on July 28, finding that the parties’ contractual forum-selection clause requiring disputes to be litigated in Munich, Germany, should be enforced. The ruling follows similar decisions by California state courts, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and the Ninth Circuit, all of which upheld or declined to interfere with the forum-selection provision.
Finnegan partner and lead BMW counsel Lionel Lavenue told Law.com that, “This is a complete victory for BMW and a historic result before the ITC."
"The ALJ's decision confirms that sophisticated parties cannot avoid the forum-selection agreements they freely negotiate simply because they later prefer a different forum. Zync repeatedly attempted to evade its contractual commitment to litigate these disputes in Munich. Through a coordinated, multi-forum litigation strategy, BMW successfully enforced that agreement across the California state court, the Northern District of California, and now the ITC, while also defeating Zync's request for emergency relief before the Ninth Circuit. The result is a consistent series of victories that reinforces the enforceability of negotiated commercial agreements."
Read “A Win in Every Forum: Judge Terminates Zync's Case Against BMW”
