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Past Performance Formula For Disaster

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 03.21.06

In United Paradyne Corp. (Mar. 10, 2006, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/297758.pdf), GAO sustained a protest of the Air Force's past performance evaluation based on its mechanical application of an irrational, mathematical formula. The Air Force's method, which independently rated the relevancy and quality of each offeror's past performance reference, improperly (1) penalized offerors for identifying less relevant past performance even when additional, relevant references had been submitted; and (2) assigned equal weight to both highly relevant and non-relevant past performance.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 04.01.26

Supreme Court Rejects “Mere Knowledge” Standard for Contributory Copyright Infringement in Cox v. Sony, Reverses $1 Billion Judgment Against Cox

On March 25, 2026, in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a $1 billion verdict against Cox. The judgment was the result of a jury trial in which Sony claimed that Cox was liable for contributory copyright infringement because it knew that its customers were using its service to infringe yet did not respond with sufficient diligence to prevent that infringement....