Bob Lowry of The Huntsville Times keeps us up to date on the legal war between Intergraph and Bentley Systems.
In 2000, Intergraph sold its civil engineering software to Bentley. "The sale included $13.5 million in cash and a [promisary] note covering one year's value the maintenance contracts." It didn't take long for the former kissing cousins to get the courts involved:
- Bentley sued Intergraph over information related to the maintenance contracts.
- Intergraph sued Bentley over the amount owed on the promissory note.
The initial law suits were just the beginning, and have now reached the level of the Alabama Supreme Court. Along the way…
…Intergraph got the value of the promissory note to $22.29 million, plus another half-million in retroactive interest.
…Bentley got $2.22 million for its breach-of-contract counterclaim on lost profits.
But then various additional courts changed the amounts, overturned rulings, and now in Year Ten, the Supreme Court figures that Intergraph broke the terms of the purchase agreement. By this time, however, I've lost track of what's going on, but I suspect there will be more appeals.
