EDO Found Liable for Contract Breach as Jury Awards iSpot $18.3M in Damages

A jury on Thursday found TV measurement firm EDO, co-founded by actor Ed Norton, liable for breaching its contract with iSpot, both companies confirmed, awarding iSpot $18.3 million in damages. ISpot was seeking up to $47 million. 

The jury, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, found that EDO breached its contract with iSpot, in connection with its handling and use of iSpot’s TV ad airings data.

“We are in the business of truth, transparency, and trust. Rather than innovate on their own, EDO violated all those principles, and gave us no choice but to hold them accountable,” an iSpot spokesperson said in a statement shared with ADWEEK.

In an amended complaint, filed in 2022, iSpot alleged that EDO accessed its TV advertising measurement platform under the premise that it would use the data in that platform only for film box office analysis.

However, iSpot claimed, EDO violated its contract by scraping proprietary data from various industries it was not licensed to access, “exploited” its dashboard and APIs, and stole iSpot’s trade secrets to build a rival TV advertising analytics platform, which launched in 2020 after its contract with iSpot expired.

ISpot also alleged in its suit that EDO and a former EDO employee continued to use iSpot’s systems, enabling EDO to extract confidential information and gain an unfair competitive edge. 

While the jury found EDO liable for violating its contract with iSpot, it tossed iSpot’s claims that EDO and a former EDO employee misappropriated trade secrets under both state and federal law, determining that the data in question did not qualify as a trade secret. 

An EDO spokesperson said in a statement: “iSpot’s desperate attempt to slow down a smaller, smarter competitor and distract us from doing what we do best, delivering superior results for our clients.”

The spokesperson noted the jury’s decision was mixed, but that it is “still disappointed that the decision on the other claim misinterpreted the complexity of events from a decade ago.”

EDO said it plans to appeal the decision. 

EDO previously filed a countersuit against iSpot in 2022 for tortious interference, alleging that just days before EDO was set to secure an $80 million investment from Shamrock Capital, iSpot added EDO to its complaint, which originally named only the former EDO employee as a defendant. Shamrock is also the owner of ADWEEK.

Proceedings in that case have been put on hold in a Delaware court. The former EDO employee did not respond to a request for comment.