Based on the oral arguments, I believe both Attia's appeal & Google's appeals will be rejected.
Attia got himself yet another lawyer, Myron Moskovitz. Moskovitz was underwhelming. He claims the signed Attia / Google document "is not a contract". Judge Bromberg very quickly asked him WTF he talking about, and Moskovitz backed down.
Moskovitz then tried the argument that Google had breached a good faith clause of the contract. Judge Lie asked him to explain how this was distinct from the trade secrets claim that Attia had already lost at trial. Moskovitz apparently failed to deliver a decent explanation because several minutes later she repeated that she needed him to explain how this was not settled fact by the trial decision.
During all this time, Judge Bromberg was actively challenging Moskovitz. Judge Wilson was silent. Moskovitz went over-time.
IMO Moskovitz was simply not capable of making this appeal work. He's either a bad trial lawyer, or a decent trial lawyer who knows he's got a losing case but will put in decent effort to justify his paycheck. IMO he wasted a lot of time spouting irrelevant claims & trying to build an appeal-to-emotion.
Fred Rowley argued for Google. He was brisk and kept his feet out of his mouth. Rowley made a half-hearted effort to argue that Google deserved costs because Attia's lawsuit was so frivolous. Judge Lie told him it was "high hill to climb" for the appeals court to overrule the trial court's discretion, and Rowley capitulated. Seems like Rowley was barely going through the motions on Google's appeal, and that Google doesn't really care much about trying to get money from broke Attia.
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Some quotes i found funny:
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Moskovitz: "google estimated they would make over $200 billion / year on this" (google's 2022 revenue was $280b)
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Moskovitz : "this is not a contract"
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Bromberg: "So this is a 6 month long contract."
Moskovitz: "Yes. So? I mean-"
Bromberg: "I am trying to understand why forming another company after that time period breaches the covenant of good faith and fair dealing"
Moskovitz : "Well. This is- This whole thing was written by Google. Alright? Attia had no input into it."
