Sinco Technologies Pte Ltd. v. Sinco Electronics Co. Ltd.

Background

The court considered the parties’ supplemental briefs concerning SinCo’s second motion in limine, a request concerning what evidence could be presented at trial. SinCo challenged the court’s treatment of disclosures that defendants made after the close of fact discovery in January 2020. SinCo argued that the court had improperly placed on it the burden of proving that it was not prejudiced by those late disclosures.

SinCo also argued that it would be prejudiced if customers, including Google and Apple, were allowed to testify at trial. The court stated that it had permitted SinCo to address documents, but not to make those arguments about the customer witnesses. The court further noted that the identities of the customers were not a surprise and that SinCo had been allowed to designate rebuttal witnesses.

Ruling

The court denied SinCo’s requested relief concerning the customer witnesses. It stated that Google’s reluctance to become involved was not dispositive and that SinCo had not explained why it could not issue a trial subpoena to Google.

For 23 new documents identified because of the new witness disclosures, the court allowed SinCo to designate the documents. It ordered the parties to meet and confer immediately about any objections and required them to report back by October 18.

The court also rejected SinCo’s arguments concerning specific documents and stated that any prejudice related to XingKe’s financial information had been cured by SinCo’s submission of a supplemental expert report from Dr. Cox. The court allowed SinCo to serve one interrogatory on XingKe regarding alleged revenue underreporting or a resulting shortfall. The interrogatory was due by October 18, and XingKe’s response was due two days later. Judge Edward Chen entered the order on October 14, 2021.