Is Samsung Hiring This Apple Critic?

With the legal battles between Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Samsung (SSNLF.PK) showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon, it’s important for the two companies to have the right people on their side. However, it may be a slightly questionable move to hire a judge to work for your legal team after he recently passed a harsh judgement in your favor against your bitter rival.

Robin Jacob, an appellate court judge in the U.K., ordered Apple to publish a notice in newspapers and on its website apologizing to Samsung last year, and then followed up by asking the iPhone maker to pay the Korean company’s legal fees in the case on an indemnity basis. He also told Apple, after it had published the apology, that the language it used in the statement amounted to lying and asked the company to revise it. “I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple,” he wrote in his ruling.

Now, in a plot twist, Samsung has hired the same judge as an expert witness in a separate U.S. International Trade Commission case. Jacob will be one of nine “experts [...] working on behalf of” Samsung in an ITC investigation of Ericsson’s (NASDAQ:ERIC) patent infringement complaint, according to a filing that FOSS Patents noticed…