by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
One of the lawsuits seeking justice over the parasitic webuypayments(dot)net re-direct scheme that plagued structured settlement search results last year swings back into action this week. This is a notable litigation for structured settlement industry stakeholders in the primary and secondary market, as many were affected by the re-direct scheme and are currently affected by a similar re-direct scheme that surfaced in February 2012.
Woodbridge alleged in its November 28, 2011 complaint that Sovereign Funding has not been content with simply using its own name and webuypayments.net to promote its services. Instead, upon information and belief, Sovereign Funding embarked on a campaign and scheme to both misappropriate the marks of and malign its competitors through a re-direct scheme that drove traffic to webuypayments(dot)net (i.e. Sovereign Funding).
According to the civil complaint filed against David Springer and Sovereign Funding in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, Defendants David Springer and Sovereign Funding are alleged to have committed:
- Trademark Infringement
- False Advertisement
- Unfair Competition and False Designation of Origin
- Common Law Trade Libel
- Product Disparagement
- Common Law Defamation
The other lawsuit was filed against the same Defendants by JG Wentworth in Maryland State Court in October 2011. The parties to that lawsuit executed a Joint Stipulaton of Dismissal With Prejudice on March 2, 2012.
Woodbridge alleged that David Springer, Sovereign Funding and persons acting with them have engaged and continue to engage in infringing, wrongful, deceptive, defamatory and unfair conduct with respct to Woodbridge and others (such as Novation Capital, Stone Street Capital) and sought to cover up his conduct and to mislead people investigating the company's practices.
If the lawsuit moves to the next stage, the Battle Royal on discovery should be interesting. If you have a PACER account the case documents can be accessed easily. See www.pacer.gov
The legal departments of companies such as Pacific Life and MetLife and many other structured settlement stakeholders who were affected by the webuypayments re-direct scheme (and are affected by the freedom1stfunding.com re-direct scheme) will find the legal documents interesting.
Kathryn Sias. the person who is behind the Sovereign Funding commercials and SEO was apparently fired yesterday according to a notification I received.
The thing is that the webuypayments(dot)net re-direct scheme appears have begun prior to the hiring of the Tampa area SEO Kathryn Sias and o-Assist.
Leave a Reply