Court Denies Cisco Systems' Motion for Summary Judgment; Former Cisco Partner, Infra-Comm, To Get Day in Court.Cisco Sued for Multiple Contractual Breaches IRVINE, Calif. -- An Orange County judge has denied Cisco Systems “Cisco” redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation). Cisco System,Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, HKSE: 4333 ) is an American multinational corporation with 54,000 employees and annual revenue of US $28.48 billion as of 2006. , Inc.'s motion for summary judgment motion for summary judgment n. a written request for a judgment in the moving party's favor before a lawsuit goes to trial and based on recorded (testimony outside court) affidavits (or declarations under penalty of perjury), depositions, admissions of fact, answers on contract claims in a lawsuit filed against it by Infra-Comm Corporation, a San Juan San Juan, city, Argentina San Juan (săn wän, Span. sän hwän), city (1991 pop. 353,476), capital of San Juan prov., W Argentina. It is a commercial and industrial center in an agricultural region. Capistrano-based reseller of communications systems. The lawsuit reveals a cautionary tale A cautionary tale is a traditional story told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. of how a corporate giant may bully a partner when business is on the line. In its lawsuit, former Cisco reseller Infra-Comm alleges that Cisco breached an exclusivity promise, and instead, improperly took an IP telephony The two-way transmission of voice over a packet-switched IP network, which is part of the TCP/IP protocol suite. The terms "IP telephony" and "voice over IP" (VoIP) are synonymous. deal valued at more than $5 million to another reseller AT&T. In the lawsuit filed January 2007, Infra-Comm said that Cisco breached contracts related to Cisco's Opportunity Incentive Program (OIP OIP Office of International Programs OIP Observatoire International des Prisons (France) OIP Office of the Iraq Programme OIP Office of Information and Privacy (US DOJ) ) deal registration, including its Indirect Channel Partner Agreement (ICPA ICPA Institute Communications and Public Affairs (Georgia Tech) ICPA International Chiropractic Pediatric Association ICPA International Corrections and Prisons Association (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) ). At stake is the manner in which Cisco conducts business with resellers. After filing the lawsuit against Cisco, Cisco terminated Infra-Comm's status as an authorized reseller and Silver Partner and with it, Infra-Comm's ability to resell Cisco products and related services to 40 active Infra-Comm clients. As a result, Infra-Comm lost 90 percent of its revenue, closed its two offices, and had to lay off most of its employees. Background on Lawsuit Infra-Comm began serving as a Cisco indirect channel partner in 2000, helping Cisco sell communications systems nationwide. The lawsuit alleges that in January 2006, after working for years with Infra-Comm to develop a large IP telephony sale, Cisco invited AT&T to take Infra-Comm's place as reseller on the opportunity, including disclosing Infra-Comm's work and extending the same pricing to AT&T. The lawsuit says that Cisco authorized AT&T's alternative sale to the customer during the period that Infra-Comm held a valid deal registration. It further alleges that Cisco then ignored its own promise to renew Infra-Comm's registration and now sells virtually all Cisco products and services to the same customer through AT&T. A copy of the lawsuit can be viewed electronically at www.infra-comm.com. |
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