Cadence Wins $7 Million Judgment Against US and Mexican Engineering Firms

In August 2017, Cadence Design Systems sued Pounce Consulting, an engineering services company with a California entity and a Mexican entity, for breach of contract, copyright infringement and circumvention of Cadence’s copyright protections.

Default and judgment

Both Pounce companies defaulted after failing to retain new counsel. On April 22, 2019, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted default judgment and found the US company to be the alter ego of the Mexican company. The final judgment awarded Cadence $6,983,178.29. A later order added about $2.1 million in attorneys’ fees and costs.

Why it matters

• Cross-border reach. Treating the US entity as the alter ego of the Mexican one put both on the hook for the same judgment.
• Fees on top. Attorneys’ fees and costs added almost a third to the award.
• Default is expensive. Walking away from the case did not make it go away.

Sources: court docket, N.D. Cal. No. 17-cv-04732; order of August 6, 2019; Ninth Circuit memorandum, November 20, 2020.

Header photo: Francisco Anzola, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and toned).