Viewers may remember the Mek Mi Rich case from the Supreme Court. Back in February of 2016, Justice Courtney Abel ruled that the owners of the Mek Mi Rich game show stole the idea of Corozal businessman Curtis Swasey, which they used to enrich themselves at his expense. Well, the Court of Appeal will decide if they will uphold that decision, or overturn it.
Up until 2014, Swasey had been in constant communication with the technical team from BTL for over 2 years, to launch his lottery game, Super Slam Sunday. The way it was supposed to work is through SMS lottery texting, where BTL's entire customer base would be able participate in the lottery game through text messaging. Email correspondence between Swasey and BTL employees show that he was explaining how to make it work with BTL's infrastructure. But, before Super Slam Sunday could become a real thing, BTL ended the partnership, citing that his game did not align with their business strategies for that year.
Months later, Mek Mi Rich was launched, and it used the same SMS lottery texting platform as Swasey's game. The Mek Mi Rich parent company, MMR Belize, is owned by Sunjay Hotchandani, and Andre Vega, son of the Former Deputy Prime Minister, Gaspar Vega.
Swasey, who says that the Mek Mi Rich model was his idea first, reasoned that the only way they could have gotten his idea was through BTL, since that company was only common link between him and the Mek Mi Rich owners. He asserted that BTL breached a non-disclosure agreement between himself and the telecoms company, and gave away his idea to Vega and Hotchandani. After a full trial, the judge ruled in Swasey's favor, and awarded him $25,000.
That wasn't the end of this court battle, however, because both Swasey and BTL disagreed with the outcome and appealed it. Swasey and his attorneys believe that he deserves more money than he was given, and of course, BTL insists that no one in the company breeched the NDA and gave away Swasey's game. In fact, they maintain that Swasey has failed to conclusively demonstrate this supposed breach with actual evidence, and that the judge made a big error in this case by drawing the inference that this was done.
The attorneys, Magali Perdomo for BTL, and Eamon Courtenay for Swasey, spent about 5 hours in court today, trying to convince the panel of judges from the Court of Appeal to see things from their perspective.
When the case ended late this evening, we got a chance to speak with Courtenay about the appeal. Here's what he had to say about the major points of contention between the litigants:
Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for Curtis Swasey
"This is not a case of breach of copyright. It's a breach of information. I am supplying information to you that you and I have agreed should be kept confidential and the question is whether or not that information was disclosed to MMR. It is not a question of copyright where somebody is proving that I have invented something and that you are trading off the invention that I have made."
"The trial judge, Mr. Justice Abel, has found that in fact the information was confidential, and the big issue is whether or not it was shared with MMR for MMR to launch Mek Mi Rich. The judge felt that there was, but only awarded twenty-five thousand dollars in damages, so the purpose of our appeal was to raise the amount of damages. With respect to Telemedia, they are appealing saying to the court that the information was information that was publicly available, and Mr. Swasey was not able to prove that it was his. So, there are two appeals, really, one against the finding of the trial judge and one against the amount of damages. What we tried to show the Court of Appeal was that the trial judge in fact considered all the evidence; there was evidence before him on which he could have come to the decision he came to. The sharing of the information with MMR is, of course, circumstantial evidence and we showed to the court certain items of evidence that leads to the inference that there was a sharing, and the reason for that is because it was taking over two years for Swasey to convince Telemedia that they could implement his project; when in fact it took much less than two years, less than a year before they were able to use Mek Mi Rich. And so, we are saying that they used the information that Swasey had given to them, in order to allow Mek Mi Rich to springboard ahead of him."
Reporter
"How does one handle the whole issue of the quantum of damages which was a big issue for Mr. Kareem Musa in the supreme court, because he was unable to demonstrate just how much Mr. Swasey's idea benefitted financially those of Mek Mi Rich."
Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for Curtis Swasey
"What I pointed out to the court of appeal just now was that there was in fact evidence before the trial judge. Two things; one, there was a projection by Mr. Swasey as how much money he would make and there was also a projection by Mek Mi Rich as how much money they would make. So what we are saying is that in a circumstance like that, the court should look at that and make a projection as to what it is that Mr. Swasey has lost based on the estimates that both parties have put forward by way of evidence. The trial judge didn't look at that evidence and what we are asking the court to do is to send it back to him for him to consider it."
The court has reserved judgment to be announced a later date. Most likely, they will have a decision ready at a later sitting of the court, which lasts for 2 weeks at a time.
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