What are Settlement Agreements?
Sometimes, Amazon.com will not proceed to trial and create a settlement agreement with the parties in dispute.
A settlement agreement is when the parties in dispute come to an agreement on their own terms. This can be performed in writing or even though an e-mail exchange. For example, in Basis Technology v. Amazon, the court held that the email was sufficiently complete and both parties were bound by the e-mail agreement.1
- Basis Tech. Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 71 Mass. App. Ct. 29, 878 N.E.2d 952, 2008 Mass. App. LEXIS 8 (Mass. App. Ct. 2008).
Basis Technology filed suit against Amazon.com alleging breach of fiduciary duty, quantum meruit, and G.L. c. 93A violations for nonpayment for “out of scope work”. The parties via e-mail agreed to a settlement, the judge held that settlement to be enforceable and Amazon appealed. The court found that the judge correctly ruled that the e-mail was a sufficiently complete and unambiguous statement as a matter of law, and that both parties were to be bound by this agreement.
- Sen v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178447, 2013 WL 6730180 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 19, 2013).
The issue here was whether the court should grant defendant Amazon.Com, Inc.’s Motion to Enforce the Settlement where both defendant and plaintiff, Sen have signed the settlement, but plaintiff was attempting to add additional terms to the agreement. The court granted the motion because it found the agreement to be complete, unambiguous, and intentionally entered into, the agreement contained all material terms and plaintiff’s additional concerns are unfounded, and because the agreement contained valid consideration.