AVANT! CORP. v. Superior Court

Avant! Corporation (hereafter, Avant) seeks a writ of mandate to vacate the order of the trial court denying Avant’s motion to stay civil proceedings or to stay discovery pending the disposition of a related criminal case.

We deny the petition.

Background.

On July 15, 1998, real party in interest Eric Nequist filed a civil complaint against Avant for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent and intentional interference with economic advantage, abuse of process, and unfair competition and business practices. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that Avant had: (1) publicly and falsely stated in its Web site that Nequist had admitted to committing insider trading and perjury; (2) made these defamatory statements as part of a course of conduct of disseminating false and misleading information to the public; and (3) engaged in this scheme of disinformation to draw attention away from its own criminal conduct of obtaining improper advantage in two other pending proceedings, namely: Cadence Design Systems, Inc. v. Avant! Corp. (U.S.DistCt, N.D. Cal., No. CZ95-20828RMW (PUT)) (hereafter, Cadence v. Avant), and People v. Avant! (Super. Ct. Santa Clara…