Paradigm BioDevices Inc. expanded its litigation against Centinel Spine Inc. to include its investors and a related company in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.
In order to recoup a financial reward that the U.K. High Court ordered the companies to pay over a contract dispute, Paradigm BioDevices filed a suit against Centinel Spine investor Viscogliosi Bros. and their portfolio company Paradigm Spine LLC, in addition to Centinel.
The Chancery Division of London’s High Court of Justice ruled in August that Surgicraft, which became part of Centinel in a 2008 acquisition, must pay Paradigm BioSciences an unspecified amount after Surgicraft defaulted on the court’s prior order to pay interim damages, according to a press release. A final damages hearing in the High Court was held in the U.K. earlier this month and was not contested by the defendants, according to Paradigm BioDevices.
That company had sued Surgicraft in 2008, after the Redditch, England-based firm abruptly terminated Paradigm’s exclusive deal to distribute Surgicraft’s Stalif TT spinal fusion device.
In the latest round over the contract, the Rockland, Mass.-based orthopedic and spinal device maker is alleging successor liability, willful and tortious interference, unfair competition, deceptive and malicious business practices, fraud and default of the High Court order to pay monetary damages, according to a press release.
“Instead of honoring those covenants, an elaborate scheme was initiated by Centinel Spine, its directors and related interested parties to circumvent those obligations, breach our contract and defraud us of the rightful compensation due to us as ordered by the U.K. High Court earlier this year,” Paradigm BioDevices CEO Mike O’Neill said in prepared remarks.
O’Neill told MassDevice in August that the three-year contract with Surgicraft began in 2004 and contained a pair of two-year renewal options and a kill fee if Surgicraft decided to cancel the deal. O’Neill declined to specify how much the court ordered Surgicraft to pay.
