Fair dealing. (Destiny)

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Monday, September 07, 2015, 19:26 (3462 days ago) @ narcogen

I'm probably going to write something longer on it, but it is interesting to note that both O'Donnell and Bungie only prevailed on one claim each out of many, and the one that Bungie prevailed on was largely irrelevant.

I'm not sure what constitutes a claim, but the arbitrator found that Bungie was correct in two accusations. Firstly they claimed Marty had their property-- copies of Music of the Spheres-- and the arbitrator agreed and it's now been returned. Secondly they claimed that he violated their copyright by distributing and performing the music without permission, and the arbitrator agreed there too, but because he gave out a copy before the copyright was filed, pursuant to a corner of copyright law I'd never heard of before, they can't get the damages they were seeking-- but they can get other relief, which I wasn't able to find the details of.

What's more interesting, though, and not portrayed in the news summaries I've seen, is that O'Donnell prevailed not because what Bungie did actually broke any of the contracts between O'Donnell and Bungie. In fact, two of O'Donnell's claims that alleged that were denied. However, it was within Bungie's power to terminate O'Donnell without depriving him of all his shares, and since the arbitrator is empowered by the agreement and JAMS rules to decide what is fair and equitable, he decided it was fair and equitable to award O'Donnell 60% of his previously unvested shares, and that Bungie had violated the concept of "fair dealing" that underpins all contract law.

Yeah, it sounded to me like they were trying to argue that because they gave him a performance review and found his performance "unacceptable" they were justified in withholding those things. It sounded like the arbitrator was saying maybe they would have been legally justified if there was anything in writing that said it worked that way, but there wasn't so they had to give him his shares.

I think it's also worth noting Marty had the chance to claim vested shares and have a say in the company, and chose not to. If that was because he doesn't want to try to push people around that don't want him involved, or because he doesn't want to deal with them at all, or because because of the larger cash value, no one can say but him.