Judge slams bikini-app maker’s lawyers in legal clash with Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Judge slams bikini-app maker’s lawyers in legal clash with Facebook

arstechnica.com

24 pointsvatueil6 comments

What the article is glossing over was that the documents were turned over to British authorities because of a lawful order issued by the British Parliament. According to the Guardian[1]: "Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London. In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents."

Kramer was really stuck between a rock and a hard place here.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/24/mps-seize...

What was he even supposed to do?

Hand them over -> risk fines and imprisonment in the US

Don’t hand them over -> immediately risk fines and imprisonment in UK

Apparently he was not supposed to have the files on his person at all.

Yes, reading the other sources (like my sibling comment) seems like he was looking for an excuse to share the documents.

It looks like he put himself into that situation on purpose. From https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/30/facebook-...

“After coordinating for weeks with the DCMS committee, Mr Kramer traveled to the United Kingdom with documents he never should have had in the first place on his laptop for some unspecified business and checked into a hotel 1500ft away from parliament,” said Sonal Mehta, an attorney for Facebook. “He voluntarily went the 1500ft to parliament, showed up unannounced, and asked to see a member of parliament. He brought with him the confidential documents on his laptop and a thumb drive.”

It almost seems he was looking for an excuse to make those documents public.

I am not a lawyer, but I understand that pissing off a judge is a bad move. Just how screwed are Kramer and his lawyers? Can the judge summmarily dismiss the case against Facebook? Can Kramer and/or his lawyers go to jail for contempt of court? Can his lawyers be disbarred? How likely are each of these? I would be very interested to hear what the lawyers on HN think.

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