Judge Urges Settlement In Dish Network Dispute With News Corp. Unit

Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen spent part of his time on the stand Thursday trying to convince a jury that a lawsuit against News Corp division NDS Group was not filed in retaliation for News Corp.’s successful bid for satellite rival DirecTV. But even as testimony continues, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter urged Ergen and other executives in the dispute to consider working out a settlement. Dish Network has sued encryption system developer NDS, alleging that firm “reverse engineered” the security smart cards used in Dish set-tops and published the hacking information on the Internet at the end of 2002. That set off a wave of hacking that forced Dish Network to swap out the security cards in all set-tops in 2004-2005. Dish Network seeks $100 million from NDS, according to court testimony, to recoup the losses caused by the smart card swap-out. Nagravision, the company which supplies the Dish smart cards that were hacked, seeks $1.3 million.
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