General Scanning wins Voxel dispute

Holographic display developer Voxel of Laguna Hills, CA, has lost its arbitration battle with former manufacturing partner General Scanning of Watertown, MA. An arbitration panel decided in favor of General Scanning and awarded the company $1.9 million for engineering work performed and out-of-pocket expenses related to the production of Voxel’s Voxcam beta units.

The award has resulted in financial hardship for Voxel, as the company will be forced to secure additional equity financing to pay the damages. The decision “complicates and compromises the company’s ability to sustain ongoing activities,” CEO Allan Wolfe said.

The dispute with General Scanning has delayed Voxel’s product commercialization time line for the Voxcam systems, and, as a result, the firm has no product sales to rely on. Voxel’s new manufacturing partner is Kaiser Electro-Optics (KEO) of Carlsbad, CA, but deliveries of KEO-manufactured Voxcams are not expected until 1999 (SCAN 3/18/98).