IT company goes into liquidation - who is entitled to the copyright?

Two entrepreneurs, Mr. A and Mr. B, were running a successful IT company in the telecommunications industry and together created a number of successful computer programmes. They then made a bad deal which went sour because of the bad faith of their biggest client.

Cash flow problems resulted in them liquidating the company.

This caused friction between Mr. A and Mr. B.
Eventually Mr. A and Mr. B were no longer talking as the one blamed the other for the bad deal. There was a lot of emotion in the air and both parties believed that they would never settle the matter. The attorney asked the mediator to help the parties to settle the matter.

During consultation it appeared that Mr. A wanted to utilise the copyright that was in the hands of the liquidator. He believed that Mr. B also wanted to get his hands on the copyright.

The copyright in the computer programmes that had belonged to the company, was now being controlled by the liquidator. He was liquidating the assets of the company.

To her surprise the mediator found that Mr. B wanted to open a new company making use of new products. He was concerned about the debt he had left behind in the old company, as he had personally given security for the debt. He had no use for the copyright that was being controlled by the liquidator.

The parties settled when they realised that Mr. A was willing to settle the debt in return for the copyright and that Mr. B was happy to let the copyright go in return for having the debt paid.

This is a good example of how a dispute can be solved when the mediator assists the parties to create a win-win solution by concentrating on their interests.

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