Quinn Emanuel Saves 43% of the Internet

Quinn Emanuel recently secured a sweeping preliminary injunction in WPEngine, Inc. v. Automattic Inc., et al., a case in which the Firm represents WPEngine, an internet hosting company, that recently came under a barrage of retaliatory actions from its rival Automattic after refusing to give in to their extortionate demands for tens of millions of dollars annually for a purported, unnecessary “trademark license.”

            WPEngine is a hosting and management provider for millions of websites built using WordPress software—an open-source software that is also the world's dominant website creation and management software and powers over 43% of all websites on the internet.  In late 2024, Defendants Automattic and Matt Mullenweg, its CEO and the founder of the WordPress software, launched and publicly announced a plan to destroy WPEngine in retaliation for resisting Defendants’ 8-figure extortion attempt, which they set at an amount equal to WPEngine’s free cash flow and demanded in the guise of “license agreement,” which Defendants contended WPEngine needed to simply describe the WordPress software its customers use.  Defendants then began a series of retaliatory moves over several weeks that hobbled WPEngine’s ability to serve its customers, including cutting it off from critical WordPress resources, defaming them, publishing their customer list and inviting other competitors to poach them, and banning them from WordPress community events.  

            Under this relentless attack from the self-proclaimed leader of the WordPress ecosystem, WPEngine was facing a bet the company crisis.  They put their trust in Quinn Emanuel to save their business from this anticompetitive, vengeful “nuclear war”—and we came through with flying colors.  The Firm quickly assembled a team of more than 20 attorneys from offices around the world, dug into the parties’ 14-year history with each other, marshaled the facts and law, filed a 9-count federal complaint with claims for tortious interference, attempted extortion, and unfair competition (among others), and moved for a broad preliminary injunction.   In a landslide victory, the court handed WPEngine all of the relief it sought.  The sweeping order commanded Defendants to “undo” every single retaliatory bad act they committed against WPEngine, restore all access and services to WPEngine within 72-hours, and further ordered Defendants to behave themselves for the indefinite future. 

            This victory has allowed WPEngine to resume its business operations and focus on serving customers.   Quinn Emanuel has since filed an Amended Complaint adding several additional claims against Defendants and continues to seek damages and permanent injunctive and declaratory relief.