A judge said Wednesday she is inclined to allow Los Angeles to be the site of Skype’s co-founder’s lawsuit seeking the return of a $471,000 ring and other property he gave his Danish ex-girlfriend in the expectation that they would wed.
The ex-girlfriend, who was cited in the lawsuit as having cheated on the Skype honcho, is fighting to send the case to Denmark. Her representative said she’s the target of “stalking by litigation.”
While Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Deirdre Hill indicated she may OK legal proceeding to move ahead in Los Angeles, she said she wanted to ponder the issues further before she makes a final ruling in the case brought by Janus Friis against Aura Dione.
Lawyers for Dione, a Danish singer, say the case should be dismissed in California and refiled in Denmark because neither she nor Friis live in the Golden State.
Friis’ suit, filed last Aug. 27, alleges that after he found out that Dione was cheating on him, he demanded the return of the engagement ring, designer clothes, a $6,000 handbag and other pricey items, most of which he says were bought in California.
The couple’s engagement ended when Friis learned “of Aura’s many indiscretions and her pattern of deceit, which took place, for the most part, in California,” according to his court papers.
The 31-year-old singer, whose real name is Maria Louise Joensen, states in a sworn declaration that she had only limited contact with Friis in California in 2014.
Friis, now 40, proposed while the couple was flying from London to Denmark in his private jet in August 2013, according to Dione. She says she returned permanently to Denmark last August.
Friis’ attorney Jamie Marquart, said most of the trial witnesses live in California, not in Denmark. He also cited a recent article about Dione in which the singer, when her words were translated from Danish to English, said she “lives in America and loves America.”
However, attorney Gregory L. Smith, on behalf of Dione, said his client has not lived in the U.S. for 1 1/2 years. He described Friis as a “disgruntled boyfriend who is trying to make life as miserable as possible” for Dione.
Smith said Friis’ clients want to keep the case in California so they can depose various men on whether they had sexual relations with Dione while she was in a relationship with the plaintiff.
“This is stalking through litigation,” Smith said.
Smith said he was unaware of the recent article about Dione cited by Marquart and that he was skeptical the translation was accurate.
Smith also said the recent break by Great Britain from the European Union will have no bearing on the ability for both sides to get a fair trial in Denmark. Friis was born in Copenhagen, but lives in the United Kingdom. Dione resides in Denmark.
Marquart said both sides should try to settle the case, and make the attempt in California. However, lawyer Avi Attal, who also represents Dione, said the parties also are involved in other litigation in Denmark and that his client is not amenable to “piecemeal resolution” of individual disputes.
Attal also said he believes that the issues between Friis and Dione are so personal that any attempt to get them together in the same room could lead to even more animosity.
Friis and Niklas Zennstrom co-founded Skype and sold it to eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. The Skype application provides video chat and voice call services.
–City News Service