LightSquared, Trimble Continue To Work on Settling GPS/LTE Interference Legal Fight

LightSquared remains hopeful it will resolve a legal dispute with Trimble, though talks with Garmin and John Deere have seemingly hit a dead end, attorneys said in a status conference Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Judge Richard Berman. LightSquared and Trimble have "exchanged formal proposals" and resolution might be possible within the next 30 to 45 days, said Winn Allen of Kirkland & Ellis, representing LightSquared. But regarding Garmin and Deere, "there has not been substantial progress" since the September status conference (see 1509090013), and mediation with Garmin did not produce any settlement Allen said. "We don't really see a realistic proposal for settlement and what we're talking about is ... not really settling this lawsuit as much as setting regulatory issues before the FCC," said Kenneth Schacter of Morgan Lewis, representing Deere. Philip Douglas of Jones Day, representing Garmin, said LightSquared had made a settlement proposal to all three GPS companies, and it was rejected by all three. A LightSquared spokeswoman Friday said the company continues "to work toward resolution of all technical and business issues to the extent the parties are willing." LightSquared sued the three companies and the U.S. GPS Industry Council in 2013 after they raised concerns that LightSquared's planned ground-and-satellite-based LTE broadband network could interfere with GPS signals in adjacent spectrum space, which led to the FCC revoking LightSquared’s spectrum license, ultimately forcing it into bankruptcy. In that bankruptcy, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest of New York on Wednesday sided with an appeal for part of the company's plan for emergence from bankruptcy, vacating an injunction against SP Special Opportunities, which is the largest unsecured lender to one of the debtors, LightSquared LP, and which is wholly owned by Dish CEO Charles Ergen. The injunction limited Ergen's involvement in the reorganization. Forrest in her ruling remanded the matter to Bankruptcy Court to see if some injunctive relief is "appropriate."