LightSquared filed a lawsuit Friday against GPS companies,...
LightSquared filed a lawsuit Friday against GPS companies, claiming they didn’t disclose potential interference problems between the spectrum and GPS equipment. The defendants are Deere, Garmin, Trimble, the U.S. GPS Industry Council and Coalition to Save Our GPS. The complaint…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
was filed within LightSquared’s bankruptcy proceeding in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. GPS receiver manufacturers, like the defendants, “are the only ones with sufficient knowledge to identify potential problems stemming from their receivers,” the complaint said. LightSquared “could not have identified the potential overload concerns unless defendants had provided LightSquared with the proprietary and confidential operational parameters for their faulty receivers,” it said. The company sought a trial. “This company unnecessarily lost billions of dollars, and this lawsuit provides for interested bidders the factual background between LightSquared and the GPS industry, a deeper understanding of the alleged abuses that led to the filing of these Chapter 11 Cases and the value of losses and damages,” said CEO Doug Smith. “Our primary focus continues to be FCC approval of our revised, GPS-compatible proposal.” The company’s investor, Harbinger Capital Partners, has a similar case pending against the defendants (CD Aug 21 p22). Last week, a judge in the bankruptcy court dismissed portions of another complaint by Harbinger against parties affiliated with Dish Network, but stated that the allegations could still be brought by LightSquared (CD Oct 31 p19). The GPS entities didn’t comment by our deadline.