Oxylabs Sued Luminati and Its Investor EMK Capital LLP For Unfair Competition

MARSHALL, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oxylabs, a leading proxy service provider, sued Luminati (Luminati Networks Ltd.) and its investor EMK Capital LLP on the following claims: unfair competition, false advertising, false patent marking, defamation/business disparagement, tortious interference with prospective business relations, tortious interference with existing contract, and conspiracy.

Oxylabs initiated legal proceedings to respond to what they believe are aggressive and anti-competitive practices by Luminati, which started back in July 2018 with a lawsuit against Oxylabs. Luminati claimed that two Oxylabs’ products - its residential proxy network and Real-Time Crawler - allegedly infringed Luminati’s patents. On February 4th, 2020, the lawsuit ended with the Court dismissing all Luminati’s claims with prejudice.

Shortly after the Court dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, Luminati released information that Oxylabs’ statement supported by official Court’s decision is misleading and inaccurate both through public and private channels, as per the following example which was published on Luminati’s official website:

“Luminati is aware of Oxylab’s recent press releases and conclusions which are incorrect and contrary to the resolution of the dispute.”

“As described in Oxylabs’ Complaint, it is becoming evident that Luminati is incapable of competing on fair terms. Luminati’s sole goal appears to be tying up its largest competitors in legal proceedings, as well as spreading misinformation to deceive the market’s stakeholders, as a way to discredit Oxylabs,” commented lawyer Mr. Steven Callahan, representing Oxylabs.

Part of Luminati’s motivation for these actions might lie in the fact that, back in August 2017, EMK Capital LLP, an investment firm, acquired a significant stake in the company. According to public information, the investment round was negotiated between EMK Capital’s managing partners Mark Joseph and Edmund Lazarus, and Luminati’s founders Ofer Vilenski and Derry Shribman.

It is relevant to note that back in 2018, EMK Capital’s managing partner Mark Joseph approached Oxylabs, expressing interest in the potential acquisition or merger of Oxylabs to expand Luminati’s service offerings and market reach. However, Oxylabs had no interest in pursuing such a possibility.

Presently, Mark Joseph is the chairman of Luminati’s board, and there’s reason to believe that EMK Capital LLP initiated or supported these tactics, now having significant influence in Luminati’s business operations.

“Taking everything into account, it seems that Luminati intends to become the only provider in the market. As our Complaint makes clear, Oxylabs will take every possible legal action to stop Luminati’s unfair business practices, striving to ensure a fair market for all stakeholders. The company strongly believes that Luminati’s behavior stifles legitimate competition and is harmful to the entire industry,” further said Mr. Steven Callahan.

Finally, Oxylabs will always strive to ensure a fair market in which innovation thrives through legitimate competition, delivering increasingly better products and as much value as possible for its partners.

About Oxylabs

Oxylabs is a leading provider of premium proxies and data scraping solutions for large-scale web data extraction. Our mission - everyone has the right to access big data - and we make sure it’s available for all businesses, small and big alike. With unmatched hands-on experience in web data harvesting, Oxylabs is in trusted partnerships with dozens of Fortune 500 companies and global businesses. Oxylabs helps its clients unearth the hidden gems of business intelligence data by not only providing state-of-the-art products but also by sharing our extensive know-how with valued partners.

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