DISH -VS- VOOM - A Settlement has been reached!

The parties have asked the court to delay (one day) the start of the trial until 19 September due to the upcoming holiday. Regardless, it will be nice to see gloves finally coming off in the courtroom after waiting 4+ years.
 

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The parties have asked the court to delay (one day) the start of the trial until 19 September due to the upcoming holiday. Regardless, it will be nice to see gloves finally coming off in the courtroom after waiting 4+ years.

But will they really?

Has this been going on so long that there was no Labor Day holiday when it started?????? They knew it was there............jeez
 
Those dreaming of a trial bringing an end to this will probably be sorely disappointed. If they do not come to an out of court settlement, there will be endless appeals, no matter who prevails. This could drag on for years.
 
Elkview said:
I hope the programming comes back, they can call it what they want.

It's not clear that "Voom" still has any rights to that content.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
Another 80 documents were uploaded to eCourts recently with about half of these being available to the public. One of the key documents posted was a court appearance to discuss the adverse instruction to the jury regarding spoilation of evidence. Both sides were permitted to present, to the judge, what they felt would be an appropirate jury instruction based on the courts ruling more than a year ago. Needless to say, both submittals were very different. Too funny!
 

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Another 80 documents were uploaded to eCourts recently with about half of these being available to the public. One of the key documents posted was a court appearance to discuss the adverse instruction to the jury regarding spoilation of evidence. Both sides were permitted to present, to the judge, what they felt would be an appropirate jury instruction based on the courts ruling more than a year ago. Needless to say, both submittals were very different. Too funny!
From the transcript, I sounds like the Judge agrees with Dish on the instruction to the jury. The Voom version was hysterical.
 
From the transcript, I sounds like the Judge agrees with Dish on the instruction to the jury. The Voom version was hysterical.

The standard instruction reads much more adverse than Dish's "Happy Time" version. The first paragraph of Dish's recommendation reads like, "Oh silly us...we forgot to retain some really old emails from way back in 2007. We can't explain why...but you know how these (rolleyes) government regulations can be."

In the second paragraph Dish recommends the following, "You may, but are not required to, conclude that, if those emails were produced in court, they would not have supported EchoStar's position." Dish cleaverly used a negative (the word 'not') in order to obfuscate the meaning of the sentence. Seriously, if the reader is somewhat lazy or lacks attention to detail (70% of the jury pool), they will come away thinking that E*'s "willful and negligent destruction of evidence" (the words the court used to describe their actions) may have supported Echostar's case and not VOOMs.

VOOM goes overboard in their proposed instruction to the court. It basically paints a picture of EchoStar leadership shoveling evidence into the hell fires of Hades in a manner similar to the way Nazi's burning books in Germany. However, they did an excellent job of using direct quotes from the court's earlier rulings against EchoStar. Too bad for VOOM that many of these comments will be viewed as being too harsh (prejudicial) if given as a jury instruction.

My take? The jury instruction will meet right in the middle; just merge these documents and divide by two. I can assure you the judge does not agree with Echostar's version since most of VOOM's quotes/references were attributed to comments/ruling made by this Judge.
 
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Dish files motions...

...it looks like they filed several motions last week (24 August):

- Preclude references to any decision by EchoStar to no longer distribute separate programming owned by VOOM HD Holdings LLC's parent company AMC Networks. (i.e., Cablevision wants to show Dish/SATS is using AMC Networks at leverage...I can only assume they are trying to show a pattern on conduct in how they used similar tactics when trying to get VOOM to renegotiate?)

- Exclude all evidence regarding Charles Ergen's financial condition. (not sure why VOOM would involve Charlie's personal accounts admitted)

- Exclude all evidence regarding Echostar's financial condition. (this may be relevant)

- Exclude all references to unrelated litigation. (this is part of VOOM's argument, but it may be prejudicial)

- Exclude all references to plaintiff's purported job losses at VOOM HD. (seems like a resonable piece of information in proving damages)

- Exclude all references to judicial statements regarding the testimony of Paul Meyer in unrelated action. (probably excluded)

- Preclude VOOM HD from using at trial a video prepared to trial purporting to demonstrate programming content. (why? it's the only place in town where you can still watch VOOM)
 
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riffjim4069 said:
The standard instruction reads much more adverse than Dish's "Happy Time" version.

You mean the standard instruction is already out? What does it say, care to just quote it?

I still find all these amusing, when the appeals panel had already said the original contract was ambiguous.
 
Trial Starts 19 September

More documents were filed with the eCourt last week. VOOM filed a pretrial memorandum which, IMO, pretty much outlined their case and opening statement to the jury. Dish's also filed a pretrial memorandum, but it was sealed by the court (no idea why).

Anyway, TRIAL STARTS NEXT WEEK! If we're going to see a settlement, and if the AMC Networks channels are going to return to Dish, we will probably hear something within the next 48-hours.
 
Anyway, TRIAL STARTS NEXT WEEK! If we're going to see a settlement, and if the AMC Networks channels are going to return to Dish, we will probably hear something within the next 48-hours.

I wonder if they would really consider settling before trial. Knowing Dish's history of endless appeals, I wonder if Dish would wait until they see they have to settle or not before even trying to settle. Even if they lose big in jury trial, Dish probably figures appeals judges would reduce the award. I am sure they are well past offering to carry AMC in exchange for a VOOM settlement. I see Dish in this for the long haul.
 

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