Suite argues that its legal action against Currenex is timely
Financial analytic software firm Suite seeks to prove that it could not have commenced its lawsuit against Currenex earlier as it was blocked from obtaining relevant information.
The copyright infringement case brought by quantitative financial analytic software firm Suite against Currenex, State Street and Frost & Fire, continues at the New York Southern District Court. On Tuesday, Suite sought to rebuff claims made Currenex and State Street with regard to timing of the legal action and the amount of damages at stake.
In brief, the plaintiffs allege that State Street infringed Suite’s copyrighted analytic trading platform software, ALib Analytic Library, by delivering the software and copyrighted source code (“ALib” or the “Copyrighted Works”) to third parties, including Frost & Fire.
Suite did not discover State Street’s wrongdoing and infringement until TradingScreen sued State Street in June 2016. In that action, TradingScreen alleged that State Street required TradingScreen to make a $400,000 payment to Frost to facilitate the delivery of the Copyrighted Works, in violation of an agreement with Suite.
State Street has argued that Suite is simply “unhappy with the deal it negotiated”, and that it is ignoring express contract terms.
In its reply, filed on Tuesday, Suite says that State Street’s infringement of the Copyrighted Works by its unauthorized delivery to TradingScreen of the Copyrighted Works (through Frost) continued at least through late-September or early-October 2014. Suite adds that the infringement for which State Street is responsible continued through a date within the three years prior to the commencement of this action, on September 17, 2017. Hence, the copyright claims are dubbed timely.
According to the plaintiffs, State Street’s argument that its alleged infringement should have been discovered in early 2014 (more than three years prior to the commencement of this action) ignores allegations that State Street actively concealed its infringing activity with fraudulent misrepresentations and by taking affirmative steps to block Suite from obtaining further information about the infringement.
In addition, Suite notes that State Street’s argument that the Court should impose a $50,000 ceiling on Suite’s damages based upon a damages limitation provision in the Agreement should be summarily rejected. According to the plaintiff, once State Street exceeded the scope of the Agreement it became a “stranger” to Suite and an infringer. Hence, the damage limitation in the Agreement does not apply to Suite’s copyright damages. Also, under New York law, when a party acts willfully and in bad faith, as alleged herein, it loses the benefit of a damage limitation in a contract.
Earlier this week, Frost & Fire, another of the defendants in this case, sought to dismiss the complaint by arguing that Suite had failed to satisfy the procedural requirements of service of process. Suite has not yet replied to Frost & Fire’s motion.
