Judge Rules Against China In 'Green Dam' Suit 152
An anonymous reader writes "About a year after Cybersitter sued the Chinese government and several Asian OEMs for allegedly copying its code to create the 'Green Dam' software, a US federal judge has allowed the $2.3 billion suit to proceed. Judge Josephine Staton Tucker, a California district judge, entered a judgement of default against the People's Republic of China on Wednesday, after PRC officials failed to respond to the ruling. Although the PRC's embassy sent a letter to the US State Department protesting Cybersitter's suit, such a letter did not qualify as a formal response."
Re:IANAL but... (Score:5, Informative)
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act [slashdot.org] is the US federal law that regulates suits in US courts (federal or state) against foreign governments. It lists exceptions to the general rule that foreign states are immune to suit because of sovereign immunity. The exception that this suit is probably based on is the one that says a foreign state can be sued when it is engaged in “commercial activity”.
Assuming the plaintiff wins the suit, damages would be collected by seizing assets of the foreign state under US jurisdiction. Since US Treasury bonds owned by China are essentially promises by the US Treasury to pay a certain amount of money when the bond comes due, transferring ownership of those bonds to the plaintiff would seem to be a way of collecting damages. Of course, that might have diplomatic consequences.
IANAL either.