News broke yesterday that Fusion Garage was fired by its PR firm, its website is offline and customers are pissed off that they haven’t received their orders. This is the company that we worked with for a year on the CrunchPad project, and eventually defrauded us.
Here’s more – the law firm representing Fusion Garage in the lawsuit with us (well, now it’s with Aol), Quinn Emanuel, has requested permission from the court to withdraw as counsel. From the filing on December 13:
2. Quinn Emanuel seeks leave to withdraw as counsel of record for Defendant Fusion Garage PTE. Ltd. (“Fusion Garage”) because Fusion Garage’s non-payment of attorneys’ fees and associated costs and a breakdown of the attorney-client relationship have made it unreasonably difficult, if not impossible, for Quinn Emanuel to continue to adequately and properly represent Fusion Garage in this matter.
3. Fusion Garage has not paid Quinn Emanuel for services rendered and the costs associated with those services for several months. During that time, Quinn Emanuel has acted on behalf of Fusion Garage by seeking discovery from Plaintiffs, responding to written discovery propounded by Plaintiffs, conducting third party discovery (including a deposition of Keith Teare), engaging in lengthy and protracted settlement negotiations, and preparing a motion to compel that is scheduled to be heard on January 3, 2012, among other tasks that cannot be disclosed on grounds of privilege and work product.
4. Fusion Garage and Quinn Emanuel have had a breakdown in communication that Quinn Emanuel can more fully explain to the Court in camera if requested by the Court. The circumstances have placed Quinn Emanuel in a position where it can no longer provide effective representation to Fusion Garage.
5. On numerous occasions (at least on November 25, 2011, December 1, 2011, December 2, 2011, December 8, 2011, and December 12, 2011), I informed Fusion Garage either orally or in writing that Quinn Emanuel would resign as counsel for Fusion Garage and would seek leave of court to withdraw from this case, and that Fusion Garage needed to retain new counsel.
Fusion Garage finally destroying itself certainly makes me happy. The fact that Quinn Emanuel and PR firm McGrath Power, who advised Fusion Garage on the right way to execute on the fraud, are left with unpaid bills also makes me happy. I’m sorry to the customers who tried to pre-order these things and may never see their money again. But, really, what were you thinking?
I’ll write more about this later, and how this failed relationship fundamentally changed my thinking on business partnerships. But for now, just die Fusion Garage. And slink away in shame, because it sure doesn’t look like you’re going to end this the honorable way.
Uncrunched 