Quanta Must Turn Over Assets to Constable Despite COVID-19

Quanta Storage must turn over its assets to a Texas constable after failing to pay a US$439 million antitrust judgment won by HP, a Houston federal judge ruled, again rejecting the software maker’s claim that it needs more time because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bloomberg Law reported. 

“HP asserts that Quanta is merely seeking to delay compliance,” Judge David Hittner wrote Tuesday, April 28. “As Constable Alan Rosen’s office is authorized under the Texas Turnover Statute, was already identified by HP,” and “was clearly acknowledged by Quanta,” no extension is needed, he said.

Hittner’s ruling partly granted Quanta’s request for clarification of two earlier orders directing the Taiwanese company to forfeit all of its “non-exempt” property, including patents and trademarks.

The judge initially ordered Quanta to turn over the assets April 1, after the company failed to post an US$85 million bond while it took the massive antitrust judgment to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

He later gave Quanta until May 1 to comply or face daily US$50,000 contempt fines. Quanta filed an emergency motion April 23 calling the two orders “impermissibly vague.” Because Hittner declined to appoint a receiver, and because Texas law doesn’t authorize HP to collect the judgment directly, the company didn’t know “to whom” it should forfeit its property, it stated.

The motion also repeated Quanta’s earlier argument that it needed more time to comply because coronavirus-related restrictions and Taiwanese law would hinder its efforts to transfer assets to the US.

Quanta, which is publicly traded in Taiwan, can’t make “a significant disposition of Taiwanese assets” without permission from that country’s courts, which requires time and adherence to formal procedures, the motion stated.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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