A U.S. International Trade Commission administrative law judge issued an initial determination to terminate a trade secret investigation involving Finnegan client BMW and Zync Inc., finding that the parties’ agreement required disputes related to their business relationship to be litigated in Munich, Germany. The judge rejected Zync’s argument that Section 337 of the Tariff Act overrides the contractual provision and concluded that the ITC may exercise its discretion to terminate an investigation based on a negotiated forum-selection clause. The determination has been certified to the full ITC for review and follows related proceedings in California state and federal courts concerning the same dispute.
Lionel Lavenue, Finnegan partner and lead counsel for BMW told Law360 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."
