Tag: sues

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Politics

Mexico sues U.S. gun producers, alleging they trigger huge harm to nation

Mexico sues U.S. gun manufacturers, alleging they cause massive damage to country

Mexican soldiers guard a crime scene.

Guillermo arias | AFP | Getty Images

The Mexican government on Wednesday sued several US arms manufacturers for contributing to the illegal arms trade in Mexico.

The lawsuit was filed in US federal court in Boston. Among the defendants named in the lawsuit are Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta USA, and Colt’s Manufacturing Company.

The companies did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

The arms manufacturers are accused of negligent business practices that facilitate the smuggling of arms to Mexico and cause “massive damage” to the country. The lawsuit alleges that they knowingly supply the criminal arms market in Mexico. Military-style companies’ weapons often end up in the hands of drug cartels and other criminals who harm civilians and government personnel.

Mexico has reported historically high murder rates in recent years, some of which in the lawsuit are attributable to the arms trade from the United States in violation of Mexican gun laws.

“The consequences in Mexico were dire. In addition to the exponential increase in the murder rate, the behavior of the defendants has had an overall destabilizing effect on Mexican society,” the lawsuit said.

The Mexican government is demanding compensation for the financial toll and bloodshed caused by the alleged wrongful conduct of the defendants. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said at a press conference on Wednesday that the government is targeting an estimated $ 10 billion, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Mexico’s Secretary of State Marcelo Ebrard watches during a press conference to announce that Mexico has sued several arms manufacturers in a U.S. federal court accusing them of negligent business practices that resulted in the illegal arms trade that took place in Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico, on 4th, 2021.

Luis Cortes | Reuters

“For decades, the government and its citizens have been the victims of a deadly flood of military and other particularly lethal weapons that have passed from the United States across the border into criminal hands into Mexico,” the lawsuit said.

“This flood is not a natural phenomenon or an inevitable consequence of the gun business or US gun laws. It is the predictable result of the willful acts and business practices of the defendants, ”it said.

The compensation would cover, among other things, the cost of deaths and injuries to Mexican police and military personnel, social services for victims of gun crimes and their families, and strengthening law enforcement to prevent the gun trade, the lawsuit said.

Laws in Mexico severely restrict the sale of firearms, and the Mexican government issues fewer than 50 gun permits each year, according to the lawsuit.

But the defendants are undermining these laws, the lawsuit says. An estimated half a million weapons are smuggled into Mexico from the United States each year, and the defendants produce over 68% of them, the lawsuit said.

That means they sell more than 340,000 firearms to criminals annually, which flow across the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that the defendants do not regulate their gun distribution practices. They sell guns to any distributor or dealer with a US license, regardless of whether they illegally sold guns to Mexico, the lawsuit says.

The defendants are also charged with marketing their weapons in a way that attracts transnational criminal organizations such as Mexican drug cartels. Barrett Firearms, for example, markets one of its rifles as a “weapon of war,” but sells it to the general public without restrictions, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleges that it enabled criminals to attack the Mexican military and police, and increased extortion and kidnapping.

Ebrard on Wednesday urged U.S. arms manufacturers to end their business practices which he believes are contributing to violence and deaths in his country, Reuters reported. He said he believed the US government, not mentioned in the lawsuit, was ready to work with Mexico to curb the illegal arms trade.

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Politics

North Dakota Sues the Biden Administration Over Oil and Gasoline Leases

North Dakota Sues the Biden Administration Over Oil and Gas Leases

The state of North Dakota has sued the Biden government for suspending new state and waterway oil and gas leases, claiming that doing so has cost the state nearly $ 5 billion in lost revenue and more than half a billion barrels of oil in the ground will hold.

President Biden ordered the suspension days after he took office as part of his climate change agenda – but the move was blocked in federal court in June so states can proceed with new leases.

North Dakota joins 14 other states with Republican attorneys general who have filed lawsuits over the moratorium on new leases.

The Interior Ministry, the federal agency that oversees oil and gas leases, declined to comment.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the North Dakota County, the state called the moratorium illegal and said the Home Office had exceeded its powers to suspend the sale of leases.

It also alleged that the suspension of two North Dakota leases, originally scheduled for March and June, has already cost the state tens of millions in lost revenue.

North Dakota is the second largest producer of oil and gas in the United States, and more than half of the state government’s revenue comes from oil and gas taxes.

“This significant damage to North Dakota will increase rapidly,” the lawsuit said, as the “illegal federal government moratorium may continue”.

If the moratorium continues next year, the lawsuit said, leases on nearly 150,000 acres of North Dakota would be blocked, preventing the construction of more than 1,000 oil and gas wells and the production of 555 million barrels of oil. The estimated total loss of revenue is $ 4.77 billion.

“I took these steps to protect the North Dakota economy, the jobs of our hardworking citizens, and North Dakota’s right to control its own natural resources,” said Wayne Stenehjem, the North Dakota attorney general, in a Explanation.

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Politics

Former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz sues

Former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz sues

Alan Dershowitz

John Lamparski | Getty Images

Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz on Wednesday filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Netflix and the producers of “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich” over his portrayal in the docuseries about the deceased multimillionaire and accused child sex trafficker.

Lawyers for Dershowitz, who was interviewed for the 2020 series, allege he was misled “knowingly and deliberately” by the producers, who “maliciously and intentionally” portrayed him in “a defamatory manner.”

They did that by “promoting and bolstering false allegations of sexual misconduct against Professor Dershowitz,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in southern Florida federal court.

A Netflix spokesperson told CNBC in a statement that Dershowitz’s lawsuit “is without merit, and we will vigorously defend our partners and the series.”  

Dershowitz is also suing Radical Media LLC and Leroy & Morton Productions LLC, as well as the show’s director, Lisa Bryant, and producer Joseph Berlinger.

Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre alleges she had been recruited as part of the dead money manager’s sex trafficking operation and had been directed to have sex with Dershowitz and others.

Dershowitz, who is still fighting Giuffre in court, denies he had sex with her and says he never met her. His defamation suit accuses the defendants of “not presenting evidence in the Netflix Epstein series that they received and agreed to present,” which he says exonerates him.

Dershowitz’s denial and Giuffre’s accusation “come off as a ‘he said/she said’ conflict,” the lawsuit states. But “it wasn’t a ‘he said/she said’ situation, however, given Professor Dershowitz’s totality of the evidence establishing he never had sex with Giuffre,” the lawyers argue.

Bryant “deliberately broke” her repeated promise to include in the Netflix series “all the evidence that Professor Dershowitz presented to her disproving Giuffre’s allegations against Professor Dershowitz,” the lawsuit alleges.

A lawyer for Giuffre did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dershowitz is demanding at least $20 million each in damages for four separate causes of action, including defamation and breach of contract, according to the lawsuit.

Philip Byler, an attorney for Dershowitz, told CNBC in an email that “the damages figure reflects that Professor Dershowitz’s reputation has been severely damaged.” He noted that compensatory claims usually get refined during the course of litigation.

“I am sure you would not want to be taunted about liking sex with underage girls,” Byler added.

Dershowitz more than a decade earlier had helped negotiate a plea bargain for Epstein that required the financier to register as a sex offender. Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019. He hanged himself in his jail cell in Manhattan federal lockup about a month later.

A Harvard Law professor, Dershowitz had also joined former President Donald Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment fight.

More recently, he told CNBC he was advising lawyers for MyPillow CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell in a defamation suit.

Byler in a statement said Netflix and the Epstein show’s producers used the professor’s name “to drive views of their miniseries and then proceeded to defame him with clever manipulation of facts.”

“This makes a mockery of our First Amendment, victims’ rights, and the truth itself,” Byler said.

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World News

WhatsApp Sues India’s Authorities to Cease New Web Guidelines

WhatsApp Sues India’s Government to Stop New Internet Rules

SAN FRANCISCO — WhatsApp sued the Indian government on Wednesday to stop what it said were oppressive new internet rules that would require it to make people’s messages “traceable” to outside parties for the first time.

The lawsuit, filed by WhatsApp in the Delhi High Court, seeks to block the enforceability of the rules that were handed down by the government this year. WhatsApp, a service owned by Facebook that sends encrypted messages, claimed in its suit that the rules, which were set to go into effect on Wednesday, were unconstitutional.

Suing India’s government is a highly unusual step by WhatsApp, which has rarely engaged with national governments in court. But the service said that making its messages traceable “would severely undermine the privacy of billions of people who communicate digitally” and effectively impair its security.

“Civil society and technical experts around the world have consistently argued that a requirement to ‘trace’ private messages would break end-to-end encryption and lead to real abuse,” a WhatsApp spokesman said. “WhatsApp is committed to protecting the privacy of people’s personal messages and we will continue to do all we can within the laws of India to do so.”

The lawsuit is part of a broadening battle between the biggest tech companies and governments around the world over which of them has the upper hand. Australia and the European Union have drafted or passed laws to limit the power of Google, Facebook and other companies over online speech, while other countries are trying to rein in the companies’ services to stifle dissent and squash protests. China has recently warned some of its biggest internet companies against engaging in anticompetitive practices.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have worked for several years to corral the power of the tech companies and more strictly police what is said online. In 2019, the government proposed giving itself vast new powers to suppress internet content, igniting a heated battle with the companies.

The rules that WhatsApp is objecting to were proposed in February by Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s law and information technology minister. Under the rules, the government could require tech companies to take down social media posts it deemed unlawful. WhatsApp, Signal and other messaging companies would also be required to create “traceable” databases of all messages sent using the service, while attaching identifiable “fingerprints” to private messages sent between users.

WhatsApp has long maintained that it does not have insight into user data and has said it does not store messages sent between users. That is because the service is end-to-end encrypted, which allows for two or more users to communicate securely and privately without allowing others to access the messages.

More than a billion people rely on WhatsApp to communicate with friends, family and businesses around the world. Many users are in India.

Critics said the new rules were being used to silence government detractors. Last month, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were ordered to take down dozens of social media posts that were critical of Mr. Modi’s government and its response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has ravaged the country. Government officials said the posts should be removed because they could incite panic and could hinder its response to the pandemic.

The social media companies complied with many of the requests by making the posts invisible inside India, though they were still visible to people outside the country. In the past, Twitter and Facebook have reposted some content after determining that it didn’t break the law.

Tensions between tech companies and the Indian government escalated this week when the police descended on the New Delhi offices of Twitter to contest labels affixed to certain tweets from senior members of the government. While Twitter’s offices were empty, the visit symbolized the mounting pressure on social media companies to rein in speech seen as critical of the ruling party.

Facebook and WhatsApp have long maintained working relationships with the authorities in dozens of countries, including India. Typically, WhatsApp has said it will respond to lawful requests for information and has a team that assists law enforcement officials with emergencies involving imminent harm.

Understand the Covid Crisis in India

Only rarely has WhatsApp pushed back. The service has been shut down many times in Brazil after the company resisted requests for user data from the government. And it has skirmished with U.S. officials who have sought to install “back doors” in encrypted messaging services to monitor for criminal activity.

But WhatsApp argued that even if it tried enacting India’s new “traceability” rules, the technology would not work. Such a practice is “ineffective and highly susceptible to abuse,” the company said.

Other technology firms and digital rights groups like Mozilla and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said this week that they supported WhatsApp’s fight against “traceability.”

“The threat that anything someone writes can be traced back to them takes away people’s privacy and would have a chilling effect on what people say even in private settings, violating universally recognized principles of free expression and human rights,” WhatsApp said.

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Business

Former Brooks Brothers minority shareholder sues, claiming ‘dangerous religion.’

Former Brooks Brothers minority shareholder sues, claiming ‘bad faith.’

In 2020, he told the New York Times that none of the sales and investment discussions “met the needs we saw”. The TAL lawsuit, which also cites the Del Vecchio family holding company, Delfin, as a defendant, alleges that none of the discussions with the board of directors or shareholders were shared. Like many global apparel suppliers, TAL, which owns 11 factories and reportedly employs over 26,000 people, was hit hard by the volatility caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. At one point, apparel production fell to just 30 percent of group capacity due to the drop in demand from retailers, resulting in the permanent closure of several factories and a relocation to the manufacture of personal protective equipment.

In August 2020, Brooks Brothers was sold to SPARC Group, a joint venture between Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States, and Authentic Brands Group for $ 325 million, after stores closed on their balance sheets had led to chaos, a licensing company. TAL is also an unsecured creditor in bankruptcy proceedings.

Paul Lockwood of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, lawyer for Claudio Del Vecchio, said: “The allegations in the complaint are false and we expect the court to dismiss the case.” Katie Jakola of Kirkland & Ellis, the law firm representing TAL, said they’d look forward to her day in court.

However, some observers doubt that it will come to that.

“This appears like two rich parties are making complaints,” said William Susman, chief executive officer at Threadstone Advisors. “The owners of the Brooks Brothers have already endured their pain. TAL is a large, demanding company. Hard to feel they were betrayed. Sounds like a settlement is in everyone’s future. “

Elizabeth Paton contributed to the coverage.

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Politics

DOJ sues Trump ally Roger Stone, spouse over alleged unpaid taxes

DOJ sues Trump ally Roger Stone, wife over alleged unpaid taxes

Roger Stone, longtime political ally of US President Donald Trump, is leaving after a status hearing in the criminal proceedings initiated against him by special adviser Robert Mueller on March 14, 2019 at the US District Court in Washington.

Joshua Roberts | Reuters

The Justice Department on Friday sued Roger Stone, the loyal former advisor to ex-President Donald Trump, claiming he and his wife owe nearly $ 2 million in unpaid federal taxes and other fees.

The lawsuit accuses Stone and Nydia Stone of using an “alter ego” business to “protect their personal income from forced collection and fund a lavish lifestyle.”

The civil lawsuit also accuses the Stones of “trying to defraud the United States” by fraudulently transferring money used to buy their home.

Stone, 68, a longtime Republican politician, was pardoned by Trump in December after being convicted of lying by Congress.

The DOJ’s complaint filed in federal court in South Florida alleges Stone and his wife underpaid their income taxes for five consecutive years in 2007 and 2011. The Stones owe $ 1,590,361.89, including interest and penalties for late payments, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit also alleges Stone failed to pay his full tax bill in 2018 when he filed separately from his spouse. He owes income taxes, interest and penalties of $ 407,036.84 for that year, the complaint said.

“Despite the termination and demand for payment, Roger and Nydia Stone failed and refused to pay the full amount of the debt they owed,” claims the DOJ.

Stone did not immediately respond to an email asking for comment on the lawsuit.

The complaint alleges that by using a Delaware limited liability company called Drake Ventures, the Stones “escaped and thwarted the collection efforts of the IRS.” The company is so dominated and controlled “by the family” that it does not exist as an independent entity, “claims the DOJ.

Drake Ventures has no website or phone number, all members are part of Stone’s family, and its address is the same as the Stone’s home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the complaint states.

“The Stones used Drake Ventures’ bank accounts to pay a significant portion of their personal expenses, including groceries, dental bills, spas, salons, clothing and restaurant expenses,” the complaint said.

They paid more than $ 500,000 of their personal tax liabilities through Drake Ventures’ bank accounts in 2018 and 2019 and used the company to pay Stone employees and relatives without providing proper documentation, the DOJ claims.

“The Stones used Drake Ventures for an improper purpose and harmed the United States,” the complaint read. “They used Drake Ventures to receive payments to be made to Roger Stone personally, pay their personal expenses, shield their assets and avoid reporting taxable income to the IRS.”

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Business

Florida sues CDC to permit cruises to renew U.S. sailings

Florida sues CDC to allow cruises to resume U.S. sailings

Maiden voyage of the Symphony of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, which was delivered from STX shipyards in Saint-Nazaire to the American shipowner Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd (RCCL).

Andia | Universal Images Group | Getty Images

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that the state would file a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, demanding that cruise ships resume sailing immediately.

“Florida is fighting back today on behalf of the tens of thousands of Floridians whose livelihood depends on the viability of an open cruise industry,” he announced at a press conference. “We don’t believe the federal government has the right to moot a large industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data.”

DeSantis described the CDC’s decision to delay the opening of the US cruise industry as “irrational” and said he believed the lawsuit had a “good chance of success”.

The CDC was not immediately available for comment.

In the first six months of the pandemic, Florida lost $ 3.2 billion to the cruise industry shutdown, including nearly 50,000 jobs that paid $ 2.3 billion in wages, according to a September 2020 report by the Federal Maritime Commission. Since the CDC shut down the U.S. cruise industry last year, the state’s seaports have seen operating revenues decline by nearly $ 300 million. That number is expected to hit nearly $ 400 million in July, the Florida Department of Transportation told CNBC.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to the media about the cruise industry during a press conference in Port Miami on April 8, 2021 in Miami, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

The governor signed an executive order on Friday banning so-called vaccination passports, which should also apply to the cruise industry. Corporations and government agencies cannot require customers or clients to provide evidence of vaccination.

In October, the CDC announced in its framework for the Conditional Sailing Ordinance that Covid spreads more easily on cruise ships than in other environments. The agency cited, among other things, a study published in the Journal of Travel Medicine which found that the virus spread at a rate four times higher on the Diamond Princess cruise, spreading an average of one person to 15 people than at the original epicenter in Wuhan, China, where it was divided from one person to four on average.

Cruise ships extend the interruptions to the landing gear

Royal Caribbean announced Thursday that it would be extending the suspension of some of its voyages from US ports.

Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises’ voyages will be suspended until June 30, according to a press release. However, voyages from new home ports in other regions of the world are still going according to plan.

The Silversea extensions exclude Silver Moon, Silver Origin, and Silver Explorer.

“Safety is a top priority and we know cruises can be safe as we have seen in Europe and Asia,” said Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, in a press release. He remains optimistic about the second half of the year, citing President Joe Biden’s promise that society should return to normal by July 4th.

Disney Cruise Line also announced on Monday that US travel will continue to be suspended until June. This affects the Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy and Disney Wonder sails.

The industry wants to be treated like an airline

Royal Caribbean has carried over 100,000 guests on its ships outside of the United States since the pandemic and seen only 10 cases of Covid, Fain said on CBS This Morning on Thursday. He said he “would like to be treated very similarly to airlines and other modes of transport.”

Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. He said cruise lines would “like to be treated in the same way as other sectors such as travel, tourism and entertainment”.

While airlines are able to fly around the world during the pandemic, the cruise industry, which had over 100,000 American jobs before Covid, has struggled for about a year with no travel from its US ports.

“The irony is that an American today can fly to any number of destinations to take a cruise but cannot board a ship in the United States,” the Cruise Lines International Association said in a statement on Monday, calling for it urged the CDC to suspend its terms and conditions, which described a gradual return to US cruise operations with no specified date.

Last week, the CDC released technical instructions for cruise lines, including increasing the frequency of Covid case reports from weekly to daily, creating a schedule for all staff to be vaccinated, and performing routine tests. However, this update did not specify a date when cruise ships would be back in service in the United States

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Arnold Donald is CEO of Carnival Corporation.

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Business

Florida sues CDC to permit cruises to renew U.S. sailings

Florida sues CDC to allow cruises to resume U.S. sailings

Maiden voyage of the Symphony of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, which was delivered from STX shipyards in Saint-Nazaire to the American shipowner Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd (RCCL).

Andia | Universal Images Group | Getty Images

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that the state would file a lawsuit against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, demanding that cruise lines resume sailing immediately.

“Florida is fighting back today on behalf of the tens of thousands of Floridians whose livelihood depends on the viability of an open cruise industry,” he announced in a press conference on Thursday. “We don’t believe the federal government has the right to moot a large industry for over a year based on very little evidence and very little data.”

DeSantis described the CDC’s decision to delay the opening of the US cruise industry as “irrational” and said he believed the lawsuit had a “good chance of success”.

The CDC was not immediately available for comment.

The governor signed an executive order on Friday banning so-called vaccination passports, which should also apply to the cruise industry. Private and public companies do not need to provide proof of vaccination.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to the media about the cruise industry during a press conference in Port Miami on April 8, 2021 in Miami, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Cruise ships extend the interruptions to the landing gear

Royal Caribbean announced Thursday that it would be extending the suspension of some of its voyages from US ports.

Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises’ voyages will be suspended until June 30, according to a press release. However, voyages from new ports in other regions of the world are still going according to plan.

The Silversea Cruises that have extended their suspension exclude Silver Moon, Silver Origin and Silver Explorer.

“Safety is a top priority and we know cruises can be safe as we have seen in Europe and Asia,” said Richard Fain, Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, in a press release. He remains optimistic about the second half of the year, citing President Joe Biden’s promise that society should return to normal by July 4th.

Disney Cruise Line also announced on Monday that US travel will continue to be suspended until June. This affects the Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy and Disney Wonder sails.

The industry demands fair treatment

Royal Caribbean has carried over 100,000 guests on its ships outside of the United States since the pandemic and seen only 10 cases of Covid, Fain said on CBS This Morning on Thursday. He said he “would like to be treated very similarly to airlines and other modes of transport.”

Arnold Donald, the CEO of Carnival Cruise Line, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. He said cruise lines would “like to be treated in the same way as other sectors such as travel, tourism and entertainment”.

While airlines are able to fly around the world during the pandemic, the cruise industry, which had over 100,000 American jobs before Covid, has struggled for about a year with no travel from its US ports.

“The irony is that today an American can fly to any number of destinations to take a cruise, but cannot board a ship in the US,” the Cruise Lines International Association said in a statement on Monday, calling on the CDC to repeal its framework for Conditional Sailing Order, which describes a “framed approach” for US cruise lines to return with no strict date in sight.

Last week, the CDC released technical instructions for cruise lines, including increasing the frequency of Covid case reports from weekly to daily, creating a schedule for all staff to be vaccinated, and performing routine tests. However, this update did not specify a date when cruise ships would be back in service in the United States

“Nobody can guarantee that anyone anywhere in America or anywhere else is safe from Covid,” Fain told CBS. “Actually the irony is, when you get on a ship, you will reduce your risk of contracting the virus.”

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Business

DoorDash sues Olo for fraud, says software program firm charged it an excessive amount of

DoorDash sues Olo for fraud, says software company charged it too much

The DoorDash grocery delivery app is demanding $ 7 million in damages from its partner, software company Olo. He accuses him of breaking a contract and fraudulently overloading him.

Olo is a software company that helps restaurants like Shake Shack and Chili’s manage their online orders. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in mid-March, expanding its presence at a time when online grocery ordering is soaring. The stock rose 39% on day one. However, Olo’s shares fell 7% on Wednesday, falling to their lowest level since their debut at one point, as more details of the DoorDash litigation were revealed in court filings in the New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday.

DoorDash told the court it was overwhelmed by Olo, who had promised the delivery app that its fees “would never be higher than the fees charged by any other delivery platform provider.” The two companies entered into a partnership in 2017. Since then, the delivery app has made up almost 20% of Olo’s sales. This contract runs until March 2022.

“In order to maximize the income for the IPO, Olo has defrauded its largest business partner,” said DoorDash in the legal document.

DoorDash claimed it found it was cluttered after acquiring another grocery supplier, Caviar, in 2019.

When DoorDash allegedly confronted Olo with evidence of these violations, it said that Olo told the company that the clauses “simply disappeared after six months through a minor amendment that only deals with the fees themselves, and that DoorDash never had a right to those had lowest fees “.

Olo also previously claimed that caviar is not a competitor to DoorDash because Caviar restaurants’ customers are in a higher price range than DoorDash’s.

Olo disclosed the disagreements between the companies in his S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February. DoorDash is said to be seeking “more than $ 7.0 million in damages.”

On Wednesday, Olo said, “DoorDash’s allegations are unfounded.” It declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, saying “the evidence speaks for itself”.

The Financial Times was the first to cover the recent filing of DoorDash in court.

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Business

Dominion Sues Fox Information, Claiming Defamation in Election Protection

Dominion Sues Fox News, Claiming Defamation in Election Coverage

Fox News and its powerful owner, Rupert Murdoch, face a second major libel suit over the network’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election, a new front in the growing litigation over media disinformation and its aftermath.

In the recent aftershock of Donald J. Trump’s attempt to undermine President Biden’s victory, Dominion Voting Systems, an electoral technology company at the center of an unsubstantiated pro-Trump conspiracy theory about rigged voting machines, filed a lawsuit on Friday in Fox News has been accused of promoting lies that ruined its reputation and business.

Dominion, who has filed for a lawsuit, is seeking at least $ 1.6 billion in damages. Less than two months ago, another electoral technology company, Smartmatic, filed a $ 2.7 billion lawsuit against Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, naming Fox anchors Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro as defendants.

In a 139-page complaint filed with the Delaware Supreme Court, Dominion depicted Fox as an active participant in spreading false claims that the company changed the number of votes and tampered with its machines to aid Mr. Biden in the election.

These falsehoods were relentlessly promoted in public forums, including appearances on Fox programs, by Mr. Trump’s attorneys, Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

In January, Dominion sued Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell on charges of defamation. The company also sued Mike Lindell, the executive director of MyPillow and an ally of Trump’s who was a frequent guest at Fox and other conservative media outlets. Each of these lawsuits seek damages in excess of $ 1 billion.

“The truth matters,” wrote Dominion’s attorneys in Friday’s complaint against Fox. “Lies have consequences. Fox sold a false story of electoral fraud for its own commercial purposes, seriously injuring Dominion in the process. If this case does not result in defamation by a broadcaster, it does nothing. “

In a statement on Friday, Fox said the coverage of the 2020 election “is in the highest tradition of American journalism” and pledged to “vigorously defend this unsubstantiated lawsuit in court.”

Dominion’s filing opened a new phase in the battle against the critics, and Thomas A. Clare, an attorney who represents the company, said Fox’s lawsuit was unlikely to be the final legal action. Susman Godfrey law firm, known for bringing cases to court, recently partnered with Mr. Clare’s law firm to support Dominion’s case.

Fox Corporation has filed a motion to dismiss the Smartmatic lawsuit, arguing that the false claims of election fraud on its channels were part of coverage of a short-lived story of significant public interest.

“A sitting president’s attempt to question the outcome of an election is objectively newsworthy,” Fox wrote in the motion.

The tale that Mr. Trump and his allies made about Dominion was one of the baroque creations of a month-long effort to cast doubt on the 2020 election results and convince Americans that Mr. Biden’s victory was illegitimate.

Founded in 2002, Dominion is one of the largest voting machine manufacturers in the United States. More than two dozen states, including several owned by Mr. Trump, used their equipment over the past year.

Mr. Trump’s allies falsely portrayed Dominion as biased against Mr. Biden, arguing without evidence that it was linked to Hugo Chavez, the long-dead Venezuelan president. Dominion founder John Poulos and other employees received harassing and threatening messages from people who believed the company had undermined the election results, according to the complaint.

Fox News and Fox Business programs were part of the mass media in which supporters of Mr. Trump denounced Dominion. The lawsuit also cites examples of Fox hosts, including Ms. Bartiromo and Mr. Dobbs, being uncritically repeated or vouching for false claims made by Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell.

“Fox took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire,” wrote Dominion in the lawsuit, adding that the network “gave these fictions a meaning they would otherwise never have achieved.”

Dominion attorneys also cited an unusual argument by Ms. Powell on Friday in a motion filed Monday to dismiss Dominion’s separate lawsuit against her.

In that motion, her lawyers alleged that “no sane person” would accept Ms. Powell’s allegations as facts because the political language is often imprecise. The motion essentially argues that their claims about Dominion’s voting machines were hyperbolic and therefore not defamatory.

Mr. Clare described Ms. Powell’s allegation as “ridiculous,” but said her acknowledgment that her allegations were not factual may prove relevant to Dominion’s lawsuit. “Fox knew these were lies, but they made a conscious choice to pass them on to their huge audience,” Clare said on a call to journalists.

Dominion said it recently lost key contracts with election officials in Georgia and Louisiana, adding that the company now faces “the hatred, scorn and distrust of tens of millions of American voters”.

Defamation battles are a relatively novel tactic in the fight against disinformation, but they have produced some early results.

In February, two days after Smartmatic filed its lawsuit, Fox Business canceled its highest-rated program, Lou Dobbs Tonight. An anchor on Newsmax – a pro-Trump cable channel that received letters from Dominion and Smartmatic warning of imminent legal action – interrupted an interview with Mr Lindell after the MyPillow founder began attacking Dominion.

Combined, Dominion and Smartmatic are seeking at least $ 4.3 billion in damages from Fox. Fox Corporation, which is controlled by Mr. Murdoch, 90) and his older son Lachlan, said it had pretax profits of $ 3 billion on sales of $ 12.3 billion from September 2019 to September 2020 .

As a large media organization, Fox News enjoys solid protection under First Amendment case law, which often protects newspapers and broadcasters from being held liable for claims made by interviewees. If a court found Dominion to be a public figure, its attorneys would have to show that Fox acted with “real malice” and “reckless disregard” for the truth, which is usually a high standard.

“There is concern that putting Fox under liability could lead to the suppression of information about which people have a strong interest,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William and Mary Law School, who referred to the law first Specializes in change.

In its lawsuit on Friday, Dominion argued that Fox had an incentive to spread falsehoods about a rigged election, in part to reassure pro-Trump viewers who were upset about the network’s early projection that Mr. Biden would wear Arizona .

Dominion also claims that Fox and its hosts have benefited from uncritically reiterating these baseless claims. The lawsuit cites a surge in ratings for anchors like Ms. Bartiromo and Mr. Dobbs after the election, noting that Ms. Pirro’s ex-husband, who spoke on the air of a stolen election, later received a pardon from Mr. Trump.

Fox has argued that its coverage of the election should be viewed in its entirety, noting that at least one host, Tucker Carlson, was skeptical of Ms. Powell’s statements. The network has also said that allegations made by the president’s lawyers in an electoral battle were inherently timely.

Freedom of expression experts said Fox was forced to defend its journalism more fully than the particular claims it made about Dominion and Smartmatic.

“Fox had a problem because many of its experts said the very things that prompted Dominion to bring this lawsuit,” prominent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said in an interview.