WPEngine v Automattic, and King Pyrrhus of Epirus
Settlement conference On 9 July, a settlement conference was held in the court hearing the WPEngine v Automattic proceedings (proceedings that are now so well-known that there’s no need to describe them). Unfortunately, no settlement was reached. The court’s ‘Minute Entry’ records: Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler: Settlement Conference held on 7/9/2025. Settlement conference held today. The case did not settle. The court asks the parties to confer with their clients, including decision-makers who were not at the settlement conference, to see whether a session with principals makes sense to identify if there is a path forward short of litigation. There is a utility to discussing settlement now: the parties should have a good understanding of the timeline that led up to the litigation, and discovery is not going to change that. The court envisions a process with the decision-makers and in-house counsel only. If this is something that could work, the parties should discuss it and circle back in the next couple of weeks with their proposals on timing. …