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A verdict has finally been reach in the German patent law dispute between Alpinestars and Dainese, concerning their respective airbag suit technologies.

In the ruling, the “Landgericht” court in Munich found that Alpinestars violated two Dainese patents concerning its D-Air technology, and thus issued a verdict that sees Alpinestars forbidden from selling its Tech-Air products in Germany.

Alpinestars will also have to pay Dainese restitution for damages incurred from Alpinestars selling Tech-Air products in Germany. The monetary amount of the damages will depend on how much Tech-Air product the Italian firm sold in Germany, which has yet to be determined.

After the verdict, both companies issued press releases touting their side of the patent dispute story, with clearly no love lost between the two parties.

Almost two years ago, Chief Petty Officer Zacharias Buob on the United States Navy was run over by Darla Jackson,who struck Buob and Buob’s Ducati motorcycle, while in a fit of road rage.

The incident should sound familiar to A&R readers, as the story made waves two years ago when it was first reported.

Now, justice has been served to Jackson, as Superior Court Judge Francis Devaney handed the 27-year-old a six-year prison sentence, after she plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter earlier this year.

The future of MV Agusta has hinged on a crucial court decision for the past five months now – one that would allow the Italian motorcycle brand to restructure its debt, thus reducing its financial liabilities and freeing up a greater portion of its cash flow for continued production.

News comes today from Varese, Italy that a local court has approved MV Agusta’s new business plan, and allowed the motorcycle manufacturer to restructure its debts with creditors and suppliers.

This is positive news for MV Agusta, and it sets in motion a number of possibilities for the Italian brand, namely closing its investment deal with Black Ocean, an Anglo-Russian private equity firm.

MV Agusta has unveiled in court its plan to get back to financial stability, after seeing cash flow issues reaching a zenith in March 2016.

The plan is exactly as it has been previously advertised by MV Agusta CEO Giovanni Castiglioni: MV Agusta will reduce its workforce, produce fewer machines, focus on high-margin models, and seek a freeze on its debts to creditors and suppliers.

Whether the Varesini court will accept this plan remains to be seen, it will also require some buy-in from MV Agusta’s creditor and suppliers, who are owed €50 million from MV Agusta.

Despite what you may have read, MV Agusta isn’t declaring protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the United States Code. But, we can understand the confusion.

Just so we are clear, by definition Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings are a figment of American law. Since MV Agusta is an Italian company, it would be fundamentally wrong to say that MV Agusta Motor S.p.A. was seeking a protection under the US Code that pertains to bankruptcy.

The branch of MV Agusta that would be able to file for Chapter 11 would be MV Agusta USA, but the US subsidiary is not embroiled in MV Agusta Motor’s financial troubles, which makes the use of the term incredibly inaccurate.

According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Danny Eslick (shown above in his mug shot) has resolved his issues from Daytona Bike Week, as the local newspaper reports that Eslick has plead “no contest” to charges that he struck a police officer last week, ahead of the Daytona 200.

In exchange for his plea, Eslick’s charges for battery on a law enforcement officer have been dropped from a felony of the third degree, down to a misdemeanor battery.

This means that Eslick should get a 12-month probation from the court, with early termination set at the six-month mark, which includes provisions for sobriety and counseling. However, that sentence could not be made by Circuit Court Judge Frank Marriott because of a technical matter, as it is not clear how Eslick will serve probation while out-of-state.

This leaves Eslick suspension with the AMA in a bit of limbo, until the terms and process of the probation are figured out by the Florida Department of Corrections.

The Spanish Supreme Court has imposed multi-million dollar fines on Dorna Sports and its executives for tax offenses arising out of the sale of shares in 2003 and 2004.

The court found that Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta and COO & CFO Enrique Aldama had simulated the sale of shares in order to avoid paying income tax and to receive undeclared dividends from the shares the two men hold.

The ruling of the Division of Administrative Litigation of the Supreme Court was that Dorna Sports S.L. sold shares to a separate company owned by the same partners (including Ezpeleta and Aldama) who were selling the shares.

The share purchase was financed using debt held in part by the partners who owned the company buying the shares. Dorna claimed that this was a form of leveraged recapitalization, but the Supreme court disagreed with that assessment.

In reality, the Supreme Court ruled, Dorna and its executives were pursuing a means of receiving hidden dividends.

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet today. Much like the spirit of its riders, Erik Buell Racing refuses to go quietly into that good night. After two failed receivership auctions, the brand has now been acquired for $2.05 million via a third auction held Wednesday, and seems set for another revival.

The winning party of this latest auction is the same winner from the second auction, Liquid Asset Partners – the same company that liquidated Buell Motorcycles when it was shutdown by Harley-Davidson, which makes for some interesting trivia.

Walworth County Circuit Judge Phillip Koss approved the winning bid today, despite a similar bid from Bruce Belfer, the first auction winner. According to a report by the EBR receiver, Belfer’s bid did not conform to the terms of the auction, and thus was not recommended to the court.

Roughly two weeks ago, we broke the story that Alpinestars and Dainese were headed to court over the alleged patent infringement that was occurring between the two brands’ airbag technologies. That report has since spurred a pair of press releases from the two brands on the subject.

First to respond was Alpinestars, which released a statement that clarified that the lawsuit in Italy centered around the material of the airbag. Alpinestars also offered correction to our report, saying instead that that no legal action had occurred in the German market.

Dainese has now released its own statement on the matter, which insists that legal action was indeed taken in the German market – the Court of Munich ultimately granting an injunction on the sale of Tech-Air products in Germany – and Dainese restates that legal action is underway in Italy.

You can read Dainese’s full statement after the jump. We’ll reiterate what we first said when all this started: the outcome of this legal battle will have big consequences in the motorcycle industry. Stay tuned, we doubt this is far from over.

Apologies, apologies, apologies for our tardiness in keeping your Two Enthusiasts Podcast addiction flowing, but never fear…Episode 13 is here, and it’s a good one.

In it, we run through some of the upcoming events in the moto-industry, one of which we will cover at length in Episode 14. We also tackle the looming sale of Deus Ex Machina to Louis Vuitton, and what it means for the beard and flannel crowd in the two-wheeled space.

And lastly, we give an update on the R1 recall and discuss the intricacies of US lemon law – though listeners should note that some of what we talk about regarding the recall has already been addressed by Yamaha, in the time it took us to get this show posted (we will wrap-up our R1 recall coverage in the next show as well).

All-in-all, we think Episode 13 is a pretty good show from the Two Enthusiasts Podcast crew.

As always, you can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Enjoy the show!

Airbag technology is the future of safety in the motorcycle industry, of this much I am certain.

Intelligent airbag suits allow for a level of impact protection previously unheard of in the motorcycle industry, or any industry for that matter, and the effects are already obvious both at the pinnacles of our sport and at the consumer level.

The business side of all this is incredibly lucrative, especially for companies who are inventing in this space and patenting their work. As such, it should probably not surprise us to learn that Alpinestars and Dainese have headed to court over their two respective airbag brands: Tech Air and D-Air.