With Wireless Telecom Group shareholders having approved Maury Microwave’s WTG acquisition for $2.13 a share Aug. 2, and Maury having declared the transaction complete Friday, WTG shareholders Eric Sabatini and Patrick Plumley voluntarily dismissed their separate fraud claims against the company, said their individual notices Friday (dockets 1:23-cv-05974 and 1:23-cv-06029) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. Sabatini (see 2307120067) and Plumley (see 2307130045) sued WTG on consecutive days last month seeking to enjoin the Aug. 2 shareholder vote on grounds that the proxy materials that WTG distributed for the special shareholder meeting contained “materially incomplete and misleading information” about the company’s financial health.

Globalgurutech (GGT) and owner Jakob Zahara “knowingly facilitate and encourage others to engage in unlawful business practices involving the unauthorized and deceptive purchase and resale of wireless communications handsets under the brand Xfinity Mobile,” said Xfinity’s Friday response (docket 2:22-cv-01950) in opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss certain counts in the amended complaint in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. The court said in June most of the claims were properly pled; four were lacking. The court said the complaint failed to assert enough individuals to comprise a conspiracy. In the amended complaint, Xfinity identified three more co-conspirators: SNU Unlockers, Juanita S. and Morgan G., who allegedly unlawfully acquire new XM phones with the “sole intention to resell them at a substantial profit and to illicitly unlock XM Phones for resale overseas." On the court’s finding that there were insufficient allegations that GGT used Xfinity’s mark to resell phones it buys, Xfinity said defendants use “at least one” Xfinity Mobile mark when advertising and selling their “materially-different XM phones." Plaintiff maintains it properly pled a claim for false advertising, citing the Lanham Act that makes it unlawful for anyone to misrepresent in advertising the qualities of another person’s goods. “Defendants have misrepresented the nature of their products by referring to specific mobile phones as XM Phones when they are, in fact, not XM Phones,” the response said. On defendants’ claim that trademark claims should be dismissed based on the first sale and fair use doctrines, Xfinity cited TracFone Wireless v. Pak China Group: “The first sale doctrine does not apply when an alleged infringer sells trademarked goods that are materially different than those sold by the trademark owner.” Also, defendants’ motion should be denied on procedural grounds for failing to comply with local rule 12(c), Xfinity said. The parties only met and conferred prior to GGT filing its first motion to dismiss and didn't meet and confer after filing of the amended complaint, it said.

Telemarketing company Yodel Technologies and its owner, Robert Pulsipher, agreed to pay the government $400,000 of a $1 million suspended judgment to resolve FTC and DOJ allegations they bombarded U.S. consumers with 1.4 billion robocalls over a three-year period (see 2307180035), said an order signed Friday (docket 8:23-cv-01575) by U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven for Middle Florida in Tampa. Yodel and Pulsipher also agreed to a permanent injunction barring them from engaging in any telemarketing activities, “whether directly or through an intermediary,” said the order. The complaint against Yodel and Pulsipher was one of five FTC enforcement actions announced July 18 against illegal robocalls and telemarketing fraud to mark the debut of Operation Stop Scam Calls, a nationwide “enforcement sweep” involving more than 100 federal and state agencies, including DOJ, the FCC and the attorneys general of all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.

DirecTV and the multiple defendants it accused of impersonating DirecTV telemarketers to defraud consumers (see 2211010049) agreed to entering a preliminary injunction enjoining the defendants from future misconduct, said their joint stipulation Thursday (docket 6:22-cv-00423) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler. The proposed injunction bars the defendants from engaging in 16 specific types of wrongdoing, including “holding themselves out” as DirecTV agents or affiliates and contacting any existing of potential DirecTV customer “to engage in any aspect of the Imposter Fraud Scheme,” it said. Any attempts to advertise, promote or sell DirecTV “shall be deemed a presumptive violation of this injunction,” it said. Any violation will result in a “presumption of contempt” and an order for payment to DirecTV of $500 per offense in compensatory damages, it said.

Pro se plaintiff Venton Smith filed an instant notice of dismissal against DSRM National Bank after the parties reached a mutual settlement agreement, said a Thursday notice (docket 3:23-cv-02804) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Smith sued DSRM in June, along with Capital One, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, TD Bank, Amazon, Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, American Express, Best Buy, Chase, Citibank, Macy’s and Nordstrom, among others, saying his personally identifiable information was exposed in a 2019 Capital One data breach (see 2306120045). Smith claimed that as a result of the breach, in which an Amazon Web Services employee stole data affecting about 106 million customers, at least 12 of his accounts were fraudulently accessed to buy unknown merchandise. Fraudulent purchases using Smith's accounts for American Express, Best Buy, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Macy’s and Nordstrom totaled $92,300 in loans, merchandise and products, he said. Equifax settled with Smith in July (see 2307140038); TransUnion said Smith’s complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and his claims are barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Also in July, Citibank, Best Buy and Macy’s moved the court to compel Smith to arbitrate his case on an individual basis and to stay the instant action pending the outcome of arbitration proceedings (see 2307240047).

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen for Northern California in San Jose recused herself from the class action in which nine iPhone 7 owners allege Apple duped the public into thinking iOS 15 would perform well on older devices (see 2308030055), said her order of recusal Thursday (docket 5:23-cv-03882). The case was reassigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins in San Jose for all further proceedings, said a signed clerk’s notice Thursday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes for Northern Illinois in Chicago denied without prejudice plaintiff Dennis Gromov's motion to compel discovery from Belkin on his power banks fraud claims (see 2308030012), said a docket entry notification Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-06918). Gromov’s class action alleges Belkin advertised power banks for mobile devices in a deceptive manner, and the chargers don’t deliver the amount of power promised (see 2301300008). His motion to compel discovery alleged Belkin was engaging in “obstructive conduct.” The judge denied the motion for failure to comply with Local Rule 7.1, which bars filing motion briefs exceeding 15 pages without prior court approval. His order called Gromov’s 31-page motion “windy” for its excessive page count, plus its 20 attached exhibits encompassing nearly 2,000 pages. If Gromov thinks another Local Rule 37.2 motion for discovery and production conference might be helpful in narrowing the issues for judicial intervention, “that is fine,” said the order. But Gromov “also is encouraged to focus the arguments and to make them succinctly, in the event the motion is refiled,” it said. “In refocusing, plaintiff may also wish to reconsider the value, from an advocacy standpoint, of filing nearly 2,000 pages of exhibits,” it said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Gilbert for Northern Illinois in Chicago is considering appointing research professor Maura Grossman, a specialist in e-discovery, as the special master in the case brought by plaintiffs Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone against T-Mobile for T-Mobile’s alleged use of fake ringtones to cover up its dropping of expensive rural calls, said Gilbert’s signed order Wednesday (docket 1:19-cv-07190). He scheduled a telephone status hearing Aug. 11 at 10 a.m. to discuss other potential candidates. The plaintiffs, over T-Mobile’s opposition, have been pressing the court for months to appoint a special master to supervise discovery (see 2303140034). The court considered T-Mobile’s arguments that a special master isn’t necessary because there are no exceptional conditions in the case, but the court disagrees, said Gilbert’s order. “The sheer number of discovery disputes” the parties placed before the court has been “a consistent theme or drumbeat” since the case was referred to Gilbert two years ago for discovery supervision, it said. That indicates the parties “need a dedicated resource to resolve or help them resolve discovery disputes that arise with startling regularity if they are to move this case forward productively and in a timely way,” it said. A big complicating factor in the case is that T-Mobile designated 99.5% of the nearly 35,000 pages of documents produced in discovery as confidential, said Gilbert’s order. The court doesn’t have “the time or judicial resources to review hundreds or thousands of documents” to determine if T-Mobile “properly has designated its documents as confidential,” it said. “This is an example of a task more appropriate for a special master,” it said. The court concluded it’s “fair” for the parties to split the monthly costs of a special master 50-50, said the order. Grossman, a lawyer, is a research professor at University of Waterloo's School of Computer Science in Ontario, Canada. Her current hourly rate is $900 “for matters such as this,” the order said.

Zuffa removed to U.S. District Court for Nevada in Las Vegas a class action filed June 30 in the 8th Judicial District Court in Clark County in which plaintiff Saul Garcia alleges the sports promotion company engages in an unlawful automatic renewal scheme for the Ultimate Fighting Championship Fight Pass streaming subscriptions it sells to consumers in California. Zuffa, which owns 49.9% of UFC, denies Garcia’s claims “have any merit” and disputes that he and his putative class members are entitled to any of the relief sought in the complaint, said its notice of removal Wednesday (docket 2:23-cv-01211). UFC’s majority owner, Endeavor Group, isn't named in the complaint. Garcia, a Los Angeles resident, alleges Zuffa’s conduct violates the California Automatic Renewal Law. Under the statute that took effect in July 2022, businesses that offer automatic renewal agreements or continuous service agreements to California consumers must provide the complete automatic renewal terms “in a clear and conspicuous manner and in visual proximity to the request for consent prior to the purchase,” said Garcia’s complaint. They also must obtain “affirmative consent” to the automatic renewal before charging consumers, it said. They also must give consumers an acknowledgment that includes the automatic renewal agreement's offer terms “that also describes the cancellation policy and explains how to cancel,” it said. Zuffa’s Fight Pass subscriptions “fail to comply with these legal requirements,” it said. Zuffa unlawfully charged Garcia’s credit card “and continues to unlawfully charge California consumers" in violation of the statute’s “core requirements,” it said. The complaint, which also alleges violations of the California Unfair Competition Law, seeks restitution of the amounts unlawfully charged Garcia and members of his class, plus injunctive relief to bar Zuffa from future violations.

In the more than three months since counsel for plaintiff Dennis Gromov served Belkin with discovery requests in his fraud complaint, “Belkin’s total response has been 38 pages and scores of objections, but no real response at all,” said Gromov’s motion to compel discovery Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-06918) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois. Gromov’s class action alleges Belkin advertised power banks for mobile devices in a deceptive manner, and that the chargers don’t deliver the amount of power promised (see 2301300008). Belkin “alarmingly” claims to have done a reasonable search for documents and repeatedly said no such documents existed, said the motion. But Belkin produced “highly responsive” documents in a different power bank case in California state court “that should have been produced again here,” it said. Belkin has been involved in the California litigation over its mislabeled power banks for four years, “and it knows full well what documents exist,” it said. Belkin also has “hidden” behind its purported need for a protective order, but hasn’t answered Gromov’s July 6 and 7 questions “about how such an order might work,” it said. “Belkin has just been absent from the field here,” said the motion. “Belkin’s conduct is obstructive,” it said. Gromov can’t take depositions of Belkin employees “until Belkin provides answers to his requests,” it said. He asked the court’s help “in getting discovery going further,” it said.