Equustek case back in B.C. court over internet jurisdiction

A British Columbia court will not delay hearing a challenge brought by Alphabet Inc. against a worldwide search result ban a previous court ordered, in a case that law professor Michael Geist says could have implications for how the courts deal with jurisdiction issues when it comes to the internet. Google is asking the Supreme Court of British Columbia to relook at a 2014 B.C. court decision that ordered the search engine giant to scrub from its results a company that was allegedly infringing on Equustek Solutions Inc.'s intellectual property. The 2014 decision was upheld by the BC Court of Appeal, which was then upheld by Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in June. In a decision late last month, the Supreme Court of British Columbia denied Equustek’s request to suspend Google’s challenge, which was set to take place last week. Equustek claimed its counsel would not be available for the dates Google set and that it would be better heard after its underlying trial against the alleged infringer Datalink Technology Gateways Inc., scheduled for April. The court did not buy the arguments. The seed of the latest round in the Equustek saga was already planted in previous court decisions. The SCC noted in its June decision — and the B.C. decision last month acknowledged — that Google could still bring an action to the B.C. court to review the injunction if it submitted evidence showing that complying with the court’s ban “would require it to violate the laws of another jurisdiction, including interfering with freedom of expression.” At the time, Google didn’t have such evidence before the courts. So following the SCC decision, Google obtained an order from a California court that determined the tech giant did not have to comply because the Canadian order violated certain free speech laws in the United States. It was a ruling that did not surprise experts, who warned that the high court didn’t fully take into consideration the reach of its extraterritorial order. As such, in a blog post last week, Geist noted that the outcome of the decision “promises to shed new light on the Internet jurisdiction issues that the Supreme Court largely avoided in its Equustek ruling and could go a long way toward limiting the impact of future overbroad ‘Equustek’ takedown orders.” Justice Neena Sharma of the B.C. Supreme Court noted in her February decision that her court should be “very concerned if parties are going to insist on enforcement of a judgment, which another jurisdiction has found is not in compliance with its own laws.”

Equustek case back in B.C. court over internet jurisdiction

Brief | March 12, 2018

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Equustek case back in B.C. court over internet jurisdiction

Brief | March 12, 2018

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