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[AVG Sales]

Federal Jury finds Automationdirect.com, subsidiary of Koyo Electronics of Japan/China, guilty on 42 claims of Breach of Contract including failure to keep AVG’s confidential information confidential, collaborating with Koyo to delay or prevent software upgrades to AVG’s touch panels, and prevent AVG from adding features but instead telling Koyo secretly to incorporate the same in C-More.

On this fateful day of September 29^th, 2010 at 8:05 PM, AVG Automation finally got justice in its five year battle against Automationdirect.com, Inc. (ADC). In 2005, AVG had sued ADC in Northern District of Illinois, for breach of contract for misappropriating AVG’s confidential intellectual property including engineering schematics, Bills of Materials, firmware and source code. AVG further alleged that during its contract period with ADC from Sept 1999 to December 2004, ADC engaged in unethical behavior behind AVG’s back the magnitude of which came to light only after the courts forced ADC to reveal its secret correspondence with its parent Koyo, that instead of fulfilling its obligations under the contract to make its best efforts to secure a fair and increasing share of market for AVG products, it colluded with Koyo to do the opposite, that instead of working to get 25% of Operator Interface market for AVG’s products as called for as its Prime Directive, a term inserted in 1999 in the contract by none other than Mr. Tim Hohmann himself, the Company Captain (President) of ADC, it secretly undermined AVG’s efforts to do so, and that starting in 2004, ADC made every attempt to wipe AVG’s Bettendorf plant off the map.

AVG at that point, instead of just caving in, fought back with the launch of its own direct marketing division; EZAutomation and pursuing all legal remedies available to it.

Automationdirect, instead of resolving its differences with AVG per the core values it espouses, instead of looking out for the interests of customers and users of AVG panels , in the next five years mounted a furious attack on AVG by trying to drown it out through an extremely aggressive legal fight. From 2005 onwards, it made every effort to keep the dispute from going to a Jury, by mountains of legal maneuvers; over 200,000 pages of documents, hundreds and hundreds of motions in the courts, two massive motions for summary judgment against AVG, and a trip to the court house almost every week for three years to come with over 400 docket entries. For these next three years, Mr. Shalli Kumar, President of AVG, was forced to practically live in the Federal Dirksen building, downtown Chicago. ADC even dragged most of the automation control media in the fight by issuing subpoena and taking their depositions .

This all ended with a Jury trial starting September 27^th under the direction of Judge Holderman, the chief Judge of the Northern District of Illinois. The trial was conducted in a very efficient and high tech manner with great visuals for the Jury and instant feedback to the lawyers and the Jury. The Jury consisted of eight citizens from all walks of life and as Judge Holderman remarked throughout the trial, a very smart and diligent Jury.

In addition to Mr. Cary Fleischer of Chuhak and Tecson, Mr. Kumar had brought in one of the best, if not the best, trial lawyer in the country by the name of Mr. Ken Suggs to represent AVG. In what could only be described as one of the most emotional and persuasive closing statements delivered in the history of the US Civil Justice system, Mr. Suggs pleaded with the Jury to do the right thing and give justice to Mr. Kumar, AVG and its employees. The Jury responded by delivering a verdict on 42 claims at issue, in favor of AVG.

AVG considers it a great victory for the very hard working and extremely conscientious employees of its plants in Bettendorf, Iowa and Carol Stream, Illinois. AVG considers it a great victory for its customers who otherwise could have been without replacement touch panels for its special needs of Data Highway Plus, Modbus Plus and Profibus along with other unique features of EZTouch such as On-line programming. And last, but not the least, AVG considers it a great victory for US manufacturers and US jobs.

[Benny Yeo]

Is there any external link for this piece of news ???

[AVG Sales]

Benny,

Look for information to be available in the upcoming days. There will also be information in the upcoming automation-based publications.

In the meantime, we do have a copy of the Jury verdict to share, if you would wish to see it.