Litigation – Learn How Long It Takes to Negotiate a Settlement with Amazon & Resolve Your Case
“All right, CJ, we got sued. We want to settle. How long is it going to take for the settlement to go through?” That’s what I’m going to be talking about today on behalf of our incredible litigation department.
So, you ended up in litigation and you want to settle your case because either it’s just not worth the financial or the time it’s going to take to fight the case and you’re not making a ton of money on that product, or the other side is right. And they’ve got you by the short hairs and you just want to settle the case, how long is it going to take? Well, usually, negotiating a settlement with opposing counsel doesn’t take a whole lot of time.
You got two lawyers, they want to resolve things, their clients want to wrap it up, and the lawyers themselves can often work out a deal in a week or two weeks. That sometimes gets messed up. If you’re getting into September and it’s the Jewish holidays or it’s around Christmas time and you got vacations or school breaks, where you got a lawyer with little kids, who’s taken off, those things happen. And unfortunately, your case is just one of X number of cases the lawyers are handling and that could lower it down. But overall, once both sides say, “Okay, let’s settle the case,” you should have a done deal within a week or two.
The problem arises, is taking that settlement and getting it over to Amazon and how long is it going to take Amazon to release your inventory, to release your money if it’s been frozen.
So, Amazon generally with a TRO, will respond within, I would say two to five days, your money’s released, but we have seen them take a whole lot longer.
When it comes to intellectual property disputes, we have seen it take weeks and weeks and weeks.
So, the lawyers don’t control how quickly or how slowly Amazon will respond to the settled issues. The lawyers amongst themselves, you could put the afterburners on, but once those agreements have to get over to Amazon, so that you’re really getting back to business, that could unfortunately take several weeks. And there’s not that much that most lawyers could do about it when it comes to using us.
If it’s taken more than a couple of days, we reach out to the lawyers that we work with, that work for Amazon. We’re like, “Hey, I’m sending over this stipulation. I’m sending over this court order. Can you make sure you get your eyeballs on it and get this resolved? And relationships help. But overall, if you’re looking at resolving cases, two weeks or so is of time for lawyers to get their deal done. Hopefully, Amazon will then do what they need to do to put you fully back in business within another week or so.
If you have any questions about how to negotiate a settlement:
CALL 1-877-9-SELLER FOR A FREE CONSULTATION OR SUBMIT A CASE ONLINE