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The Dahon v Tern lawsuit is likely to a long one. Newly createdTern has won the first battle. Tern’s Josh Hon has issued a statement regarding the first judgement and the wider reasons for the split from Dahon.
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JOSH HON’S STATEMENT:
It is very unfortunate that Dahon North America and Dahon China, both managed by my father David Hon and a group of mostly new associates, have decided that the legal arena is the best place to try and compete in the market. Although I am constrained in what I can share publicly about the facts of the lawsuit because it is in court, please rest assured that we are confident that once the true facts are examined, it will be clear that the case has no merit.
My father and his group have already requested that the court in Los Angeles stop us from doing business with our new company. They submitted their arguments to a United States federal judge who read their alleged evidence and denied their request in an order he made on July 19, 2011. We are pleased to receive this favorable ruling at the very start of the case and are very confident that if it is not dropped, the entire case will eventually be resolved in our favor.
I would like to add that our decision to separate from Dahon China and Dahon North America was not a decision that was made lightly. I have personally spent almost half of my life building the Dahon brand — my mother has been there from the beginning. Nevertheless, we have decided to form a new company, with new ideas and a new vision. Suffice it to say that there are many good reasons for our team of people to now move in a new direction, on a new path.
We could very well have gone to court to wrestle for control and ownership of the Dahon brand worldwide, but we elected not to because we, the team, all of us, did not want to be mired in negativity, and certainly not with a family member. We have a team of people who believe in the bicycle as a transport solution, love designing bikes, and are pretty darn good at it. This is why we chose the hard road of developing a new brand and moving in a new direction.
The Tern team is full of dedicated, hard-working, and for lack of a better word, “smart” people. We do things deliberately and only after examining an issue from many sides. We are one hundred percent committed to taking the high road as we embark on this new path, always acting properly from an ethical and legal standpoint.
We at Tern are excited about the future because we know that our mission to promote sustainable transport is true and that there is a need for the products we are developing.
