Apple Avoids Sharing Australian Carrier Contracts with Samsung

Earlier this week, it was reported that Apple had been ordered to share with Samsung terms of the contracts it held with Australian carriers. As part of its lawsuit attempting to have sales of the iPhone 4S halted in the country, Samsung sought information about subsidies being paid to Apple by carriers and whether the amounts of those subsidies might somehow result in anti-competitive behavior.

Those early reports on the judge's ruling may, however, have been somewhat incomplete, as ZDNet Australia now reports that Apple was instructed to share only certain parts of those terms should they exist in the carrier contracts. According to the report, Apple claims that the terms Samsung had been looking for do not exist in the contracts, and with that claim Apple has avoided full disclosure of the terms.

The NSW branch of the Federal Court made an order yesterday that Apple had until noon on 10 November 2011 to produce certain contract terms or face disclosing full, non-redacted contracts to Samsung's barristers.

Despite dismissing the notice to produce as being a Samsung-led "fishing expedition" yesterday in court, Apple complied with the notice to produce, informing representatives from Samsung that the clauses that it was seeking to confirm as being present within the contracts were in fact nowhere to be found.

A Samsung lawyer apparently pressed the judge on whether Apple's claim could be believed, but abandoned that pursuit after justice Annabelle Bennett indicated that there was no reason to mistrust Apple on the issue.