Lenel reaches long-term agreement with Mercury Security following lawsuit
More than a year after filing a lawsuit against Lenel, access control hardware provider Mercury Security Corporation announced on Monday that it has inked a new long-term contract with the company to support its access control products. According to Mercury Security Co-Founder and CEO Frank Gasztonyi, the lawsuit the company filed against Lenel last July for alleged copyright infringement and breach of contract has been dismissed as a result of the negotiation of this new long-term contract between the two companies.
"We’re happy that this finally came to be. We’ve been working on this and we’ve been very close for a couple of months and it’s finally become official after going through (the corporate legal process)," he said. "We’re really back on very good terms with each other and I think we’re seeing that our businesses are aligned and we will be working together into the next decade."
At issue in the lawsuit, according to Gasztonyi, was the use of I/O modules that Lenel’s parent company, UTC, built referred to as "U" boards that were being connected into Mercury’s system controllers, which they have agreed not to do any longer. However, Gasztonyi said that Mercury would support existing "U" boards in the field. "We are making sure that the customers do not experience any pain," he said.
Despite the lawsuit, Gasztonyi said that the two companies have maintained a good working relationship through the legal dispute.
"We’re very much a part of the market presentation that Lenel is putting forward now and we have our developers talking with their developers and our marketing people coordinating with their marketing people," Gasztonyi added. "Even during the time when we had our legal disagreement, our business flow was in good shape. There was no interruption in delivery or quotations or support so business continued, but what’s reemerging again is our cooperation on long-term development projects and feature implementations."
"Mercury and Lenel have successfully innovated industry-leading security solutions for many years. We are both focused on meeting customer and market needs by jointly developing differentiated solutions," said Lenel President Joe Kirmser said in a joint statement issued by the companies.
