ZipDX 'Defamed' Avid After Firm Wouldn't Buy Its Software: Complaint

In its second December defamation complaint (docket 4:22-cv-558), Avid Telecom alleges conference call service company ZipDX launched a campaign to force Avid customers to terminate their business with the common carrier, said the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Tucson (see 2212080050).

ZipDX CEO David Frankel is “on a quest to destroy the reputations of telecommunications carriers that he deems as noncompliant with his own metrics for compliance with applicable laws and regulations related to robocalling,” said the complaint. Frankel’s “relentless and cynical pattern of libel and slander against Avid accuses the carrier of “illegal activity on a massive scale,” the complaint said.

Frankel “defamed” Avid Telecom to trade associations and business groups and encouraged “numerous federal agencies” and state law enforcement officials to launch “crippling investigations and enforcement actions” against Avid based on false statements, said Avid CEO Michael Lansky. State attorneys general for Ohio and Indiana issued civil investigative demands to Avid based on “the data and false and misleading representations made to them by Frankel,” said the complaint.

Saying Avid is an “industry-leader in the effort to thwart illegal robocalling,” Lansky said his company “carefully limits” the calls it transmits to legal robocalls and operates within applicable federal and state laws and regulations. The company is in “full compliance” with secure telephone identity revisited (Stir) and signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens (Shaken) standards, said the complaint. Avid spends at least $400,000 annually to buy enhanced switch data services from its provider that allow it to identify illegal calls and terminate providers of them, it said.

Lansky’s decision not to buy Frankel’s software resulted in a “campaign of defamatory statements to high profile telecommunications associations and forums,” plus demands that Avid’s key customers “cease doing business with the company,” the complaint said. Avid is seeking exemplary and punitive damages. Frankel didn’t comment Friday.

Earlier this month, Lansky sued TransNexus in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta, alleging the software telecom company published a transcript of a Skype conversation in November depicting one of the participants seeking to unlawfully mask illegal robocalls to avoid being flagged by federal investigatory agencies, using Lansky in a doctored version. That led the companies to cite the false depictions of Lansky as a reason to “cut ties” with Avid, said the lawsuit.