In Might, a jury dominated that adware maker NSO Group should pay $167 million in damages to WhatsApp for a 2019 hacking marketing campaign that focused greater than 1,400 individuals.
Calling the damages ruling “outrageous,” “blatantly illegal,” and “unconstitutionally extreme,” NSO Group now desires the decide overseeing the case to scale back the quantity, or order a brand new trial.
On Thursday, the corporate filed a movement for a brand new trial or a “remittitur,” which is a process that permits a court docket to scale back an extreme verdict.
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The submitting was first reported by authorized information shops Law360 and MLex.
Within the court docket submitting, NSO Group’s attorneys stated that the “outrageous punitive award exceeds the utmost lawful punitive damages award on this case by many orders of magnitude.” The attorneys argued that the quantity ordered in punitive damages — the $167 million — violates limits that say the jury shouldn’t award damages “better than 4 instances compensatory damages,” which had been $444,719 on this case.
The attorneys additionally argued that the jury’s award is “illegal as a result of it displays the improper need to bankrupt NSO out of common hostility towards its enterprise actions apart from the restricted conduct for which punitive damages might be awarded on this case.”
WhatsApp spokesperson Margarita Franklin instructed information.killnetswitch in a press release that WhatsApp will hold combating the case.
“For the previous six years, NSO has tried to keep away from accountability at each flip. That is one other anticipated try to assert impunity, in response to a robust message from the jury of U.S. residents deciding to punish NSO for its 2019 unlawful assault towards an American firm and its customers,” stated Franklin. “We’ll reply to the court docket as we proceed to pursue a everlasting injunction towards NSO to stop this adware agency from concentrating on WhatsApp and our customers ever once more.”
NSO Group additionally stated in its court docket submitting that the quantity awarded in damages “grossly exceeds NSO’s capability to pay,” and “displays an improper need to punish NSO.”
Through the trial, NSO Group already argued that it’s in dire straits financially.