“If you’ve even casually followed the strange saga of Proview, the company who claimed to own the iPad trademark in China, you may see them as a fly-by-night,” J.R. Bookwalter reports for Mac|Life. “After reading this, you might think they’re a bunch of deadbeats, too.”
“Proview has failed to cough up fees to the attorneys who helped the near-bankrupt tech company win a $60 million settlement from Apple over the the trademark to the iPad name in China,” Bookwalter reports. “It seems the Grandall Law Firm, who covered Proview’s legal fees in return for a four percent share of the settlement, is none too happy about being stiffed on its share of the $60 million payout — so they’re taking Proview to court in an effort to collect on the $2.4 million owed to them.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you whore for bankrupt extortionists, should you really expect to get paid without force?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
He claims the company isn’t under normal operation right now. Yet what does that have to do with paying the legal fees they owe. Truly underhanded scammers who only care about getting there money and seem to be able to ignore all normal laws and get away with it!
Grandall law firms deserves such a treatment, they dont deserve any money, ill gotten money that it. I hope the chinese screw them
I agree. They helped Proview who sold the “IPad” trademark to one of Apple’s shell companies. If they would renig on that, only fitting they renig on lawyers.
Bullshit. The law firm did a job, and apparently they did it well. (How many cases can Apple lawyers lose? Is their a record?). Attorney’s exist to contest arguments. They present a case, they do not decide it. Blame the judge or jury that ruled in favor of Proview.
I thought they settled and it never went to a jury.
Yes, agree, well said. Not the legal firm’s fault that it took on a case pro bono and won. Apple must employ the worst lawyers in the world.
“pro bono” representation means without fee- not the situation in this case…
I think they refer to this situation as taking a case on contingency. Payment is contingent on winning.
You are so quick to criticize Apple legal, BLN! How many lawsuits have *you* won in China?
I suspect that it is very difficult for a foreign company to win a court case in China.
Funny, I thought being layers this would be treated the same as when I purchased my house. The cheque is made out to the Law Firm and they divvy it up.
Very likely that the payment was made to the bankruptcy court/trustee (whatever the equivalent is in China) because Proview was already in bankruptcy proceedings.
Just like the iPad thing, Proview can not keep a promise. That law firm should sue for more than 2.4 million.
Proview is getting what they deserve.
I would bet the banks are not being paid either. I would further bet whomever got the check is now in Taiwan or Singapore living large.
no honor among thieves.
If you take a dog for a client expect to get flees!
But ironically they took a dog on and didn’t get fees… however, they did get fleece…d
+1 for old-school MDN pun humor.
+1 for using it to poke fun at a misspelled word (Hah! I tried to deliberately spell “misspelled” with only one “s” just for fun, but Typinator wouldn’t let me do that).
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the afore-mentioned product, I just am protected from typos by it, apparently even deliberate typos.
Bulshit. All payments would have to be be made to the legal representing firm and distributed only after legal fees have been deducted.
We are talking about China, right?
+1
Maybe not because Proview was already in bankruptcy in China, so it may have been required to have any monies owed to it paid directly to the bankruptcy court.
Of course, being China, who knows what their bankruptcy rules are.
Suckers!
Fuckem.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!! All lawyers need this kind of humbling treatment for their parasitic and huge sense of entitlement behavior.
Ha, hah- this is rich (pun intended)!
People sure do have short memories.
Apple paid no money directly to Proview- they paid the Chinese courts, into a fund to be used to pay off Proview’s creditors.
I see no scenario where the lawyers would have expected to skim 4% off the top of that settlement. They will be in line like everyone else Proview owes.
Q: What about this event doesn’t fit perfectly well within the corrupt culture of China: Criminal Nation?
A: Nothing.
‘Screw thy neighbor out of everything you can get your hands on’ is the eternal chant of the rat maze. That includes screwing over China’s customers, including Apple. I will never comprehend why Apple does business with this hell hole.