The world (the parts that care) sat on the edge of their seat today, expecting Valve to finally respond to the case of Elias ‘Jamppi’ Olkkonen. The case could very well be a historic moment of legislation for esports and cheaters around the world, so if you’re half-interested in an esport or two, the case could have monumental repercussions.
Today marks the fateful day that Valve was to reply to the court case as it all seemed to barrel ahead with reckless abandon with the underlining statement being from Elias Olkkonen himself, saying that ‘he wasn’t the cheater, his friend was’.
It’s a bizarre case when a user that has his identification linked to his account has been found cheating in Counter-Strike and then attempts to sue the developers that busted him cheating. Somehow today, the case has become even more fascinating.
Elias Olkkonen’s attorneys have sued the wrong Valve.
Rather than pursuing litigation against the Valve Corporation that was founded in America in 1996, Elias’ attorneys sued Valve GmbH (a subsidiary of Valve) that was established in Germany in 2016. As promised, Valve would reply; it just happened that it wasn’t the Valve that Elias had in mind.
They replied that, as Elias Olkkonen isn’t a consumer of their products and they are located in Germany, the District Court of Eastern Uusimaa has no jurisdiction on their proceedings. Further, Valve GmbH doesn’t ‘engage in commercial or business activities in Finland.’
Chuckles aside, this was likely foreseen by Elias’ attorneys and is a response from Valve attempting to shake free of this. Elias’ attorneys want the case to happen in Finland, which is subject to a mass of consumer advocacy laws and rulings; Valve wants the case to occur (if it must) on United States soil.
Valve GmbH takes care of billing and customers within Europe, which is likely what made the segment of the company prime material for targeting by Elias’ lawyer.
This is merely the very first step of which will ultimately result in either side requesting an appeal anyway, because the best thing courts are good for is slowly dragging out problems for as long as possible while silver-spoon graduates hem and haw over esoteric writings.
What it comes to is whether or not Jamppi actually cheated on his account., If he did, many believe that there should be zero recourse. If he didn’t, however, as he alleges, then Valve might have difficulty in maintaining their strict regulations that discourage cheaters. If Valve gets their butt handed to them over this, we could very well see a large number of cheaters simply running about with reckless abandon, as long as their pockets are deep enough to bring the circus show of legal battles.
