Microsoft and Samsung cannot agree on the best city in the world to hatch out peace. Samsung thinks that Hong Kong is the best while Microsoft believes that it should be New York.
Samsung has started an arbitration proceeding in Hong Kong against Microsoft as the Seattle behemoth attempts to give it a Chinese burn over smartphone patent royalties.
The arbitration was disclosed in a court filing as part of a federal lawsuit Microsoft filed in August in New York accusing Samsung of refusing to make royalty payments to Microsoft after the software company announced its intention to acquire Nokia’s handset business.
Samsung specifically wanted the Hong Kong office of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce. It is not clear why Hong Kong was chosen – perhaps it was the good shopping, better access to Dim Sung, pork in a bun and the students revolting.
The arbitration was started under the terms of a business collaboration agreement “to resolve a dispute concerning the calculation of success credits under that agreement,” Samsung said.
Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, said the companies’ contract provided that the “appropriate venue to interpret the business collaboration agreement is New York”. After all, if they could make an arbitration there, they could make it anywhere and they could go all through the night because the city never sleeps.
The arbitration came just days after Microsoft filed an amended complaint in its New York lawsuit asking the court to rule that it did not breach a business collaboration agreement with Samsung.
Microsoft in the complaint also wants Samsung to pay $6.9 million interest on more than $1 billion in royalty payments which it delayed in protest of the Nokia deal.
Microsoft claims Google Android mobile system uses some of its technology, and most hardware makers, including Samsung, have agreed to pay patent royalties on Android handsets.
Motorola Google said no and has been in litigation against Microsoft since 2010.
