| This goes well beyond mistakes, it is utterly absurd that the judge would not look at this more closely absent a defendant in a country on the other side of the planet, especially when this kind of money is involved. It's not a $50 parking ticket. Imagine yourself in their situation, having to defend a legal case in court in a place where you've never been to that has no bearing on anything you've done in your life. That makes the world's population open to being sued for profit in these courts because the courts simply don't do their job. A mistake is when you pass the pepper instead of the salt. This is ruining someone's life. From TFA: "Ms Luke has engaged an intellectual property lawyer in the United States, with an initial engagement fee of $US10,000 ($14,800), in a bid to have the rulings overturned and the damages retracted. " "The single mother of four said the situation was taking its toll. "The anxiety that this causes, not knowing if they are going to come and take our house, can they freeze my assets, can they get access to my bank accounts? "We just don't know and it really is a case of guilty until I can prove otherwise."" That engagement fee is on the low side and yet I think that 99% of the people that might get caught up in stuff like this have absolutely no way of paying that kind of money to correct something they have part in. Besides, the suggestion that you can recoup your legal fees is not really fair: in practice you won't be able to recoup all your fees and you certainly won't be able to recover your time or the stress. |
This is fundamentally unjust and classic bully boy behaviour by American courts and terrible corporate citizens.