Suite wants to drop lawsuit against Currenex (again)
Less than a month after asking the Court to reopen the case against Currenex, Suite says a settlement has been reached.
The dynamics of a copyright infringement lawsuit targeting Currenex, Inc., State Street Corporation and its wholly-owned subsidiary State Street Global Markets LLC, have been developing in the spirit of the popular song “I Hate You Then I Love You”.
The plaintiff – Suite LLC, a vendor of quantitative financial analytic software, on Wednesday filed a Letter with the New York Southern District Court indicating that the lawsuit may soon come to an end. This happens less than a month after Suite submitted a Motion to reopen the case stating that the parties have been unable to finalize the settlement in principle that they reached in early May. Now, with the latest Letter filed with the Court, the mood has changed again.
Suite now says that the parties in the case continued their discussions and have successfully reached a settlement that fully resolves this action and they have executed a settlement agreement. Accordingly, Suite withdraws the letter motion about reopening the case. The parties expect to file a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice within thirty days.
Let’s recall what the case is about. The lawsuit was launched by Suite LLC in September 2017. The defendants were alleged to have infringed upon and misappropriated Suite’s intellectual property, including its source-code.
The action refers to events dating back to as early as September 2011, when Suite entered into an agreement with State Street and Currenex providing the latter with a perpetual license of Suite’s ALib Analytic Library (ALib), analytical software. The license was limited to State Street’s and Currenex’s use and precluded resale or sharing with third parties.
Currenex and State Street allegedly distributed Suite’s copyrighted, confidential software and source-code to third parties, including an existing customer of Suite, “TradingScreen,” and a competitor of Suite, Frost, without the consent or authorization of Suite, thus breaching the confidentiality provision and the restrictions stipulated in the contract. In particular, Frost distributed Suite’s copyrighted source-code and software (that was licensed to State Street) directly to TradingScreen.
Suite has sought to permanently enjoin the defendants’ copyright infringement and misappropriation of Suite’s trade secrets; and to recover its damages arising from the defendants’ acts as well as punitive damages.
The defendants have responded to the accusations by stating that Suite is simply “unhappy with the deal it negotiated”, and that it is ignoring express contract terms.
