RE: Re:
[{"sender": "jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com]", "recipients": ["Weingarten, Reid"], "timestamp": "Friday, August 12, 2016 9:26 AM", "subject": "Re:", "body": "August 11, 2016\n\nA federal jury decided Thursday that one of the Middle East’s most prominent banks did not commit fraud and\nsteal technology from an Irvine firm that sued it for half a billion dollars in damages after their partnership\ncollapsed.\n\nOrange County company InfoSpan had alleged that Emirates NBD ended a partnership for a mobile payment\nsystem because it didn’t want to share revenue and stole InfoSpan’s technology to launch its own service.\n\nThe Dubai-based bank, in turn, denied it stole or ever used InfoSpan’s technology. It argued that it cancelled the\npartnership because InfoSpan couldn’t produce a working product and misled it into thinking it was an\nestablished company, not one with little to no track record.\n\nAfter deliberating for a day, the jury unanimously decided that InfoSpan did not prove its case of fraud and theft\nof trade secrets.\n\nInfoSpan had asked for $540 million in damages. An attorney for InfoSpan declined to comment on the\npossibility of an appeal.\n\nThe verdict capped a two-week trial that involved dueling accusations of fraud levied by high-profile attorneys\non both sides, including the former White House counsel to President Obama.\n\nAt the center of the high-stakes battle was San Juan Capistrano resident and entrepreneur Farooq Bajwa and a\nmobile payment system that he said would allow migrant workers in the Middle East to send remittances back\nhome through text messages.\n\nBajwa contended that InfoSpan, with support from outside investors, spent $87 million developing the business\nand technology.\n\nTo launch the system, known as SpanCash, Bajwa partnered in 2007 with Emirates Bank, which is controlled\nby the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund.\n\nIt seemed the ideal collaboration for the Pakistani immigrant, who earned millions operating another Irvine\ncompany that manufactured computer components in the 1980s and 1990s\n\nThe Gulf States rely heavily on migrants to work construction and other low-wage jobs, offering a ready-made\nmarket for SpanCash. InfoSpan aimed to allow migrants to transfer money back home far more cheaply than\nWestern Union or hawala, a traditional Middle Eastern broker-to-broker money transfer system.\n\nA study from McKinsey & Co., cited in court records, projected annual revenue of $3.5 billion by the deal’s\nfifth year, with InfoSpan receiving more than $2.8 billion in fees.\n\nBut the relationship between InfoSpan and Emirates Bank soured and the bank cancelled the deal in 2009.\n\nA few days later, Emirates filed a criminal complaint in Dubai against Bajwa and a partner alleging that they\ndefrauded the bank and misrepresented InfoSpan as an established business with a working technology.\n\nTwo years later, InfoSpan sued in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana and alleged that its technology was working\nand that it delivered its source code to the bank on servers. Emirates ended the deal, InfoSpan said, to launch its\nown mobile payment system after stealing InfoSpan’s technology.\n\nIn court, an attorney for InfoSpan argued that Emirates torpedoed the InfoSpan relationship because it abhorred\nhow much money it would have to share with the Irvine firm."}, {"sender": "Weingarten, Reid", "recipients": ["jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "8/12/2016 1:58:39 PM", "subject": "RE: Re:", "body": "This is a big deal"}]