HP Wins Quanta’s Factories and Patents In Court

HP will keep all the cash, factories, and patents Quanta Storage was ordered to turn over to satisfy a US$439 million antitrust judgment from 2019, a federal appeals court ruled.

The Taiwanese disk drive maker was ordered to surrender almost all its assets before its appellate challenge had played out because it failed to post an US$85 million bond to prevent early collection of the crippling award. The appellate court did agree to give it more time to comply, reported Bloomberg. 

“Quanta risked bet-the-company litigation and lost, so the district court ordered it to hand over the company,” a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals in New Orleans stated Friday, June 5, in a 21-page ruling.

Quanta tried repeatedly in April to delay HP’s push to collect on the judgment. It claimed that coronavirus travel and business restrictions in Taiwan and China, where most of its executives and factories are, prevented it from posting the bond while complying with Taiwanese regulations on asset transfers by publicly traded companies. HP claimed Quanta was using the pandemic as a ploy to dissipate assets that could be used to satisfy the judgment.

“It is not apparent from the record that the district court considered the amount of time it would take for Quanta to complete the asset transfer process required by Taiwanese law,” the panel said Friday, June 4. 

“Quanta violated US antitrust laws by conspiring to fix prices,” Alex Roberts, one of HP’s lawyers, wrote in an email. “That conduct cannot go unpunished. HP took them to task for those violations, and now we look forward to ensuring they comply promptly” with the turnover orders.

Quanta stated in an exchange filing in Taiwan on Sunday that the company will file a petition for the case to be reheard en banc. It will also discuss with its lawyers the procedure of the US Supreme Court appeal in the case.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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