摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）要求解聘，破产法庭设定了出售海能达美国分部的时间表
摩托罗拉解决方案公司和海能达的律师最近的一系列法律文件中就对方公司的战略动机进行了口头指责后，破产法庭计划于8月27日批准海达美国的分公司出售
. 8月27日这一天意义重大，因为它将允许法院考虑摩托罗拉解决方案公司8月20日完全撤销破产的请求. 摩托罗拉解决方案公司称，海能达试图“法庭听取摩托罗拉驳回动议中提出的问题的全部记录之前，强行通过‘自由和清晰’的资产出售……”
摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）和海能达（Htera）的律师最近的一系列法律文件中就对方公司的战略动机进行了口头指责后，破产法庭计划于8月27日批准海达美国的分公司出售
根据美国加州中区破产法院发布的一份通知，海能达美国分公司海能达美国分公司（简称“海能东公司”和“海能达通信美国公司西部”）的潜投标人必须8月14日之前声明其意向
如果没有竞购者出现，海能达美国分公司将出售给海能达美国分公司，该公司是海能达通信中国的一家新分支机构，该公司拥有承诺为海能达美国资产支付至少789.7万美元。如果至少有一个新的合格竞买人被确定，破产法院将8月18日进行拍卖，以确定海能达美国分部的新所有者
根据法院通知，无论海能达美国分部的所有人何时被裁定，破产法院8月27日之前都不会考虑批准出售。8月27日这一天意义重大，因为它将允许法院考虑摩托罗拉解决方案公司（MotorolaSolutions）8月20日完全撤销破产的请求
海能达已经提出了一个时间表，要求摩托罗拉解决方案公司的解雇请求被审理前几个小时完成破产出售。摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）称，海能达试图“法庭听取摩托罗拉驳回动议中提出的问题的全部记录之前，强行通过‘自由和清晰’的资产出售……”
相比之下，海能达律师将摩托罗拉解决方案公司驳回诉讼的动议定性为“摩托罗拉不惜一切代价消灭商业竞争对手的总体战略的一部分，上周五提交给破产法院的海能达提交给破产法院的一份文件称，“摩托罗拉更感兴趣的是摧毁债务人的分销网络，巩固其美国市场的垄断地位，而不是实现债务人财产价值的最大化。”
毫不奇怪，海能达认为，破产法院应该驳回摩托罗拉解决方案的动议
“债务人[海能达东和海能达西部]认为，驳回动议应全部驳回，并批准将债务人资产出售给最高出价者或其他最佳出价者，”海能达提交的文件中说。“无论是投标程序还是出售，都不会损害摩托罗拉的知识产权。拟议中的销售令非常清楚地表明，‘自由和明确’的救济不会影响摩托罗拉的知识产权……”
知识产权是摩托罗拉解决方案公司和海能达之间长期纠纷的核心
今年2月，美国联邦法院陪审团裁定，海能达必须向摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）支付7.646亿美元的赔偿金，原因是海达其DMR产品组合中大量使用了商业机密和受版权保护的软件。这项悬而未决的经济处罚是海能达东和海能达西部根据海能达法律文件，于5月26日申请破产保护
如果没有联邦法院对摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）的大规模裁决，海能达美国分公司仍将是可行的业务——摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）要求解散的动议承认了这一事实。截至2019年12月31日的一年里，海能达美国分公司的两个主要部门的总收入为4290万美元，尽管净营业收入导致了约10万美元的亏损
虽然破产出售时间表已加利福尼亚州确定，但芝加哥联邦法院法官尚未就摩托罗拉解决方案公司（Motorola Solutions）的永久禁令请求作出裁决，该禁令将阻止海能达全球范围内销售任何有争议的DMR产品。摩托罗拉解决方案公司的律师认为，“没有合法的买家会
禁令救济的范围伊利诺伊州商业秘密案中确定。”
考虑到这一点，摩托罗拉解决方案的律师声称，破产出售是海能达计划的一部分，“计划是让内幕交易获得批准，以创建一个有判决证据的‘新的'海能达美国'附属公司，该附属公司将继续进行非法、侵权销售而不受惩罚，大概认为摩托罗拉必须对其提起新的诉讼这家“新”实体及其“新”产品，都是为了进一步拖延或完全避免向摩托罗拉支付美国伊利诺伊州北区地方法院的判决
“利用破产法院逃避摩托罗拉的判决，继续推出一个新的、名不副实的继任者之前，利用破产法院来逃避摩托罗拉的判决，洗刷海能达美国的业务，这是‘典型的’不诚信行为。”
去年11月开始的联邦法庭审判中，海能达律师承认，三名前摩托罗拉（当时该公司还没有改名为摩托罗拉解决方案公司）的员工塞缪尔·奇亚（Samuel Chia）、Y.T.Kok和G.S.Kok2008年离开并加入海能达之前，查阅了7000多份摩托罗拉文件。然而，海能达的律师称这三名工程师是“坏蛋”，他们没有向海能达的任何人透露DMR的商业机密和软件是从摩托罗拉拿走的
海能达律师要求重新审判，并认为如果判决不被推翻，摩托罗拉的赔偿金应该大幅减少。相比之下，摩托罗拉解决方案公司要求中国海能达公司应支付的财务奖励应包括海能达自庭审开始以来实现的利润、利息和律师费
海能达还辩称，美国联邦法院发布的禁令只能美国境内适用，这意味着海能达可以其他国家销售DMR产品。但摩托罗拉解决方案公司声称，《商业机密保护法》（DTSA）中的措辞支持本案中授予全球禁令，因为海能达通过参加美国的贸易展美国从事“助长犯罪的行为”
A bankruptcy court is now scheduled to consider approving the Chapter 11 sale of Hytera’s U.S. divisions on Aug. 27, after attorneys for Motorola Solutions and Hytera exchanged verbal barbs about the other company’s strategic motivations in a series of recent legal filings.
Potential bidders for the Hytera U.S. divisions—Hytera America, or “Hytera East,” and Hytera Communications America (West), or “Hytera West”—are required to declare their intentions by Aug. 14, according to a notice released by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California.
If no bidders emerge, the Hytera U.S. division would be sold to Hytera US, a new affiliate of China-based Hytera Communications that has committed to paying at least $7.897 million for Hytera’s U.S. assets. If at least one new qualified bidder is identified, the bankruptcy court would conduct an auction on Aug. 18 to determine the new owner of the Hytera U.S. divisions.
No matter when the owner of the Hytera U.S. divisions is determined, the bankruptcy court is not scheduled to consider approval of the sale until Aug. 27, according to the court notice. This Aug. 27 date is significant, because it will allow the court to consider a request by Motorola Solutions to dismiss the bankruptcy entirely on Aug. 20.
Hytera had proposed a schedule that called for the bankruptcy sale to be finalized hours before the Motorola Solutions dismissal request was set to be heard. Motorola Solutions described as Hytera’s attempt to “ram through a ‘free and clear’ asset sale before the Court can hear the entire record on the issues raised in Motorola’s motion to dismiss …”
In contrast, Hytera attorneys have characterized Motorola Solutions’ motion to dismiss as part of “Motorola’s overall strategy to eliminate a business competitor at all costs,” noting that “Motorola is more interested in destroying the Debtors’ distribution network and solidifying its monopolist position in the U.S. market than it is in maximizing the value of the Debtors’ estates,” according to a Hytera filing submitted to the bankruptcy court last Friday.
Not surprisingly, Hytera believes the bankruptcy court should deny the Motorola Solutions motion to dismiss.
“The Debtors [Hytera East and Hytera West] believe the Motion to Dismiss should be denied in its entirety, and the sale of the Debtors’ assets approved to the highest or otherwise best bidder,” the Hytera filing states. “Neither the bidding procedures nor the sale will prejudice Motorola’s intellectual property rights. The proposed sale order makes it abundantly clear that the ‘free and clear’ relief will not affect Motorola’s intellectual property rights …”
Intellectual property rights are central to the lengthy dispute between Motorola Solutions and Hytera.
In February, a U.S. federal-court jury ruled that Hytera would have to pay Motorola Solutions $764.6 million in damages for improper use of trade secrets and copyrighted software in a significant amount of Hytera’s DMR product portfolio. This pending financial penalty was the reason that Hytera East and Hytera West filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 26, according to Hytera legal filings.
Absent the massive federal-court award to Motorola Solutions, the Hytera U.S. divisions would remain viable businesses—a fact acknowledged in the Motorola Solution motion for dismissal. For the year ending on Dec. 31, 2019, the two primary Hytera U.S. divisions generated combined revenues of $42.9 million, although the net operating income resulted in a loss of about $100,000, according to the Huang declaration.
While the bankruptcy-sale schedule has been set in California, a federal-court judge in Chicago has yet to rule on a Motorola Solutions permanent-injunction request that would block Hytera from selling any of the contested DMR products worldwide. Motorola Solutions’ attorneys have argued that “no legitimate buyer will engage until
the scope of injunctive relief is determined in the Illinois Trade Secret Case.”
With this in mind, Motorola Solutions attorneys claim that the bankruptcy sale is part of Hytera’s plan to “plan is to have an insider sale approved to create a judgment-proof ‘new’ ‘Hytera US’ affiliate who will continue making illegal, infringing sales with impunity—presumably arguing that Motorola must file new lawsuits against that ‘new’ entity and its ‘new’ products, all to further delay or completely avoid paying Motorola a single dollar of the judgment entered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
“That plan—to use the bankruptcy courts to evade Motorola’s judgment and launder Hytera’s U.S. business before continuing with a newly-fashioned different-in-name-only successor—is ‘classic’ bad faith.”
During the federal-court trial that began last November, Hytera attorneys acknowledged that three former Motorola (the company had not yet changed its name to Motorola Solutions at the time) employees—Samuel Chia, Y.T. Kok and G.S. Kok—accessed more than 7,000 Motorola documents prior to each of them leaving and joining Hytera in 2008. However, Hytera attorneys described the three engineers as “bad apples” who did not share with anyone else at Hytera that the DMR trade secrets and software were taken from Motorola.
Hytera attorneys have asked for a new trial and argue that the award to Motorola should be reduced significantly, if the decision is not reversed. In contrast, Motorola Solutions asks that the financial award that China-based Hytera should pay should be increased by including the profits that Hytera has realized during the time since the trial started, interest and attorney fees.
Hytera also has argued that an injunction issued by a U.S. federal court only should apply within the U.S., which would mean Hytera could sell the DMR products in other countries. But Motorola Solutions asserts that language in the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) supports granting worldwide injunction in this case, because Hytera engaged in an “act in furtherance of the offense” in the U.S. through its participation in U.S. trade shows. |
