Tiffany & eBay settlement?

I did some digging today on the status of the Tiffany v. eBay lawsuit – the case is in Federal District Court in Manhattan, home of the handy PACER system that allows public access to court documents. I think this is where the gossip sites get their spicy celebrity court documents, although I didn’t see a mug shot link, which is unfortunate. Anyways, the case has been bogged down with answer amendments and motions in limine since 2004, but on November 11, 2007 this document was filed:

I spoke with some clerk friends who are generally knowledgeable about litigation issues – their interpretation was that while this is an indication that a settlement is possible, the fact that a magistrate judge is conducting the negotiations indicates that a settlement may very well not happen. However, as I mentioned in my previous post, if any damages are awarded via trial or settlement, any corporation that has had counterfeit goods hawked on eBay could potentially see some form of a payday if they were to follow suit. The fact that eBay is considering a settlement at all is pretty interesting.

Edit: eBay is at $33.51 today (2/9/2007). It will be interesting to see if this has any impact or if it is already baked in.

Edit 2: Stop the presses. It looks like SDNY has a mandatory settlement negotiation step for civil suits seeking monetary damages, so this doesn’t mean boo. Bummer