District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco issued a ruling on Friday disqualifying Elon Musk’s social media company X Corp’s longtime law firm from representing them in a lawsuit against Israeli data-scraping firm Bright Data Ltd. The lawsuit alleges Bright Data illegally copied content from X’s platform.
Alsup stated the lawsuit closely resembles a separate case brought by Meta Platforms Inc (META.O), parent company of Facebook, against Bright Data. He noted that X’s law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, had previously advised Bright Data in that case.
“Quinn Emanuel is now attacking a former client whose on-point battle plan it helped create just over one year ago,” Alsup said in his ruling.
A spokesperson for Quinn Emanuel, a 1,000-lawyer litigation-focused firm known for representing Musk and his companies in various legal battles including with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, expressed disagreement with the ruling and mentioned they are assessing their next steps.
X Corp did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Bright Data’s lawyers.
Last year, Meta and X separately sued Bright Data, accusing them of illegally copying and selling their content, as well as providing tools for others to do the same. Bright Data denied these allegations. Meta dropped its case against Bright Data in February following an adverse ruling.
X’s initial complaint against Bright Data, filed by a different law firm, was dismissed in May. In June, Quinn Emanuel sought to file an amended lawsuit on behalf of X.
Bright Data sought to disqualify Quinn Emanuel, noting they had hired lawyers from the firm in 2023 to evaluate their litigation strategy against Meta, paying them nearly $40,000.
Alsup ruled that despite different lawyers within Quinn Emanuel advising Bright Data compared to those advising X, the entire law firm owed a duty of loyalty to Bright Data.
