TMCnet News
Businessman wins US$90mn damages from software giants(BNamericas.com Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)A Mexican court has ruled in favor of a local businessman regarding piracy charges brought by Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe Systems and Autodesk and ordered the software giants to pay US$90mn in damages, local daily Milenio reported. After an eight-year battle, the court found the companies had falsified testimonies and evidence used against Vctor Rendn and ruled that the accusations were responsible for the bankruptcy of Rendn's former company Consultores en Computacin y Contabilidad (CCC). "The ruling shows these companies committed several illegal acts which is the reason for the compensation for moral damage," Rendn's lawyer, Jorge Asali, was quoted as saying. Asali told Milenio that the four companies had "orchestrated a campaign" against Rendn using illegal tactics in order to remove him from the software selling business. The story began in 1998 when police searched CCC's premises following a complaint filed by the Mexican office of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which is dedicated to rooting out pirated software and is sponsored by the four software companies. The BSA accused Rendn of pirating patented software and reselling it for his own gain. Based on data from tech consultancy IDC, the BSA has said that pirated software accounted for 65% of the total used in Mexico in 2004, up three percentage points over 2003. Figures for 2005 have not yet been released. |