Satnews Daily
September 7th, 2014

ViaSat's Breach Of Contract Against Space Systems Loral / MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates... $ettled + Re$olved (Legal/Business)


[SatNews]  MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (“MDA” or the “Company”) (TSX:MDA) and Space Systems/Loral, LLC (“SSL”) have settled the litigation with ViaSat Communications, Inc. pursuant to a comprehensive settlement agreement.

Under the agreement, all litigation between the parties will be dismissed, resolving all of the parties’ patent and contract claims.  The settlement gives MDA/SSL and their customers protections against litigation in the future, allowing MDA/SSL to focus on the manufacture of all satellites, including SSL’s High Throughput Satellites (HTS).
 
Daniel Friedmann, president and CEO of MDA, said, “We are very pleased to settle these disputes with ViaSat. This settlement enables SSL and ViaSat to put our disputes behind us, which benefits everyone.  We appreciate our customers’ support and apologize for any inconvenience caused to our customers during this difficult period, and we thank them for their support and patience.”

Under the terms of the settlement, in consideration of a current payment to ViaSat of $40 million and future payments of $60 million over 2-1/2 years with interest, ViaSat has agreed that SSL and its customers will be free from any lawsuits with respect to SSL's future use of the ten patents-in-suit and certain other patents and patent applications and with respect to breach of certain contracts that were the subject of the suit. The settlement also releases Loral, SSL and their customers from all claims for patent infringement and breach of contract brought in the lawsuits.

The payments to ViaSat will initially be funded equally by Loral and SSL but will be subject to a further allocation between the parties. Loral and SSL have agreed to arbitration in October 2014 to allocate how much of the payment each party bears.

"We are pleased with the settlement with ViaSat as it avoids further exposure to the uncertainties of jury determinations in complex patent matters at a cost to both Loral and SSL that, given the breadth of the settlement, is well within the range of reasonable settlements," said Michael B. Targoff, Vice Chairman of Loral. "We are also satisfied with the arrangements that we have put in place to allocate the payment between Loral and SSL. We believe these arrangements, providing for a knowledgeable, experienced attorney/arbitrator to make the determinations, will result in a fair and equitable sharing of the settlement cost acceptable to both companies."

The MDA infosite is located at http://www.mdacorporation.com/

SSL's infosite is located at http://www.sslmda.com/

The ViaSat infosite is located at http://www.viasat.com/