In what must be one of the most stinging rebukes to a ‘proper’ claimant, the Court of Appeal went bezerk and ripped into Sony.
Jesus, there was blood everywhere. It was liked a scene from Kill Bill with Lord Justice Chadwick swinging his samurai sword with gay abandon: the ancient walls of the court sprayed with gushes of arterial blood; lawyers clutching their entrails as they lay on the floor screaming for a 15 minute recess in order to amend pleadings urgently.
Geeklawyer apologises: he has had too many coffees this morning.
The court said that Sony’s attempt to ’scam’ the tax man into accepting that the PS2 was in fact a proper computer, and thereby attract 0% duty, was wrong. It wasn’t, it was just a games machine.
Geeklawyer observes ‘en passant‘ that Sony shipped a Linux distro for the PS2 (sorry, Geeklawyer geeked out there for a moment; in semi-English: they shipped a ‘Linux’ general purpose computer operating system) and one presumes it was done to bolster this argument. They are also doing the same for the imminent PS3 and if as a result Sony decide the game isn’t worth the candle that will be shame for those with a predilection for pointless arsing around with obscure hardware/software combinations. Perhaps the same arguments apply in other countries? Dunno.
Apparently it is not only Geeklawyer who has had too many coffees. Lord Justice Chadwick savaged Sony’s Lawyers.
“In my view the skeleton argument filed in this court on behalf of Sony goes beyond what can be regarded as acceptable written advocacy: it exceeds the bounds of propriety,”
“I am not protesting about its inordinate length, nor about its discursive quality, nor about its frequent and unnecessary resort to hyperbole, although all those unappealing features are present.
That is, really he is complaining about its length, its waffle and that it’s full of bullshit.
“My concern is with the repeated aspersions that are cast in that document on the intellectual honesty of the High Court Judge from whose decision this appeal is brought”
So remember you stupid lawyer: don’t diss the judge. It isn’t big and it isn’t clever. I’m gonna bet Sony will ask for a biiiiiig chunk off of its legal bill.
As I...
Class!
Somehow I managed to finish giving the judge the brief facts of the case without open warfare breaking out. But the atmosphere was about as convivial as a gathering of teetotal undertakers.
– Rumpole and the Dear Departed
Perhaps the judge wasn’t winning at grand theft auto.