http://www.theedgemarkets.com/sg/article...on-damages
NEW YORK (July 8): QT Vascular announced that the US federal district court has awarded damages of US$20.03 million ($27.2 million) to AngioScore, Inc. and further ordered the company’s CEO, Dr Eitan Konstantino to disgorge the benefits he had received arising from the alleged breach of fiduciary duty, including amounts he had received for assigning his intellectual property rights to Chocolate PTA balloon catheter, royalties on past and future sales of Chocolate PTA, and all of his shares and options in the company.
QT Vascular and its CEO have been advised by their US counsel that they have multiple grounds for appeal, and that the decision of the single judge in a federal district court in Northern California "contains numerous legal errors".
Among others, the defendants and their US counsel believed the trial court may have erred in finding Konstantino, as a director who did not have an invention assignment agreement with AngioScore on whose board he sat, had an obligation to offer his invention to AngioScore, when it had been independently conceived and developed without utilising any resources of AngioScore.
AngioScore, an angioplasty company, initiated patent infringement proceedings on June 29, 2012, against the company's subsidiaries, TriReme Medical, LLC and Quattro Vascular and Konstantino relating to the Chocolate PTA.
On June 27, 2014, AngioScore added claims alleging that Konstantino breached his fiduciary duties to AngioScore by developing the Chocolate PTA and that TriReme US, Quattro Vascular and that QT Vascular aided and abetted the alleged breach.
QT Vascular said the trial court decision “does not have any adverse impact on the defendants' defenses” related to the patent claim which is scheduled for trial in September 2015 and “will not have” a material effect on the financial position or profitability of the company.
Subsequent to the trial court decision, QT Vascular says it has mutually agreed to terminate an agreement with investors ICH Gemini Asia Growth Fund, Toe Teow Heng, Toe Teow Teck and Kuah Ann Thia to subscribe for US$12 million 8% convertible bonds due in 2017, as announced by the company on July 1, 2015.