Business proceedings in Dallas (Tex., USA) looking like a wrestling match

• François BROUSSE
  Ancien directeur général adjoint de la CISI
  

Summary

All began by the infringement of a French patent, the stake of it being trifling. The owner, a French company, decides to start an action against its French opponent, just to see. The assistant general manager of the company owning the patent, having some spare time, takes on the case. Then everything runs away. Suddenly that dispute, a trite case of infringement between two French companies, is increasing extensively due to the implication of the American mother company of the opponent : summoning in Dallas; entering the lists of a famous American consulting firm presenting steep accounts, removing the case from the Dallas Court to account of the Washington Federal Court, some tens million dollars being at stake. The action between the two French companies changes then into a wrestling match and tough negotiations ending in a long standing face to face, similar to a game of poker between the French assistant general manager and the American manager of the Texan mother company.

Summary translated from French by Rachel MARLIN.

• The entire article was written by Thomas PARIS.

To obtain this article, you can :

• download it for free in French (PDF help) or contact ecopar@paris.ensmp.fr (Reference VA090600).

The entire article appears in French in the Journal de l'École de Paris du management N° 26.