WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against parent companyWordPress.com Automattic. On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins.
The preliminary injunction comes after WP Engine, an expensive WordPress hosting service, filed a lawsuit which accused Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, for “multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm”.
Then he asked the court to stop Mullenweg from restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org.
Ο Mullenweg ran a public campaign against WP Engine in September, accusing the service of misusing the WordPress trademark and not helping the WordPress community enough.
After WP Engine was banned from the WordPress.org servers, Automattic took control of the ACF plugin of WP Engine.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín found WP Engine's claims that Automattic's actions harmed the businesses of her, stating that Mullenweg's conduct “was designed to provoke damage in the company".
As for Automattic's argument accusing WP Engine of relying on WordPress.org to power its business, Judge Martínez-Olguín did not find it all that convincing.
