Satellite broadcaster EchoStar is asking a federal court to let it join a lawsuit accusing a News Corp. subsidiary of stealing its encryption secrets and handing them over to Internet pirates.

Denver-based EchoStar filed a motion in San Francisco's Northern District Court on Friday requesting to join a standing suit by Canal Plus Technologies against NDS, which makes digital pay-TV technology.

Canal, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, competes with NDS to make digital "smart cards" for use in securing paid satellite broadcasts. Last April it accused the U.K. and Israel-based NDS of stealing its encryption source code for the cards. The suit alleges the code was turned over to pirates who used it to sell access cards online. Canal is reportedly seeking about $1 billion in damages.

NDS, meanwhile, called Echostar's moves baseless and nothing more than an attempt to cause its own competitor harm.

But NDS's parent company, News Corp., is also in negotiations with Vivendi over the possible purchase of Vivendi's Italian pay-TV subsidiary Telepiu. Echostar's motion is apparently a move to protect evidence if Canal and NDS were to settle out of court.

"As part of any proposed settlement agreement, [EchoStar and its subsidiaries] fear that the parties intend to destroy all relevant evidence in connection with the ligitation, including depositions and other evidence that will impact [EchoStar]."

Echostar's own complaint against NDS is similar to Canal's. The companies contend that an NDS employee stole their security codes and let pirates have it to sell pirated smart cards.

In a statement Monday, NDS president and CEO Dr. Abe Peled denied that NDS had any connection to the piracy of EchoStar's satellite broadcast system, or any other system for that matter.

NDS said EchoStar's motion to join a suit suggests it has no evidence of its own to support its allegations. EchoStar's moves are sure to add more rancor to an already strained relationship between News Corp. and EchoStar. News Corp. had been trying to buy satellite broadcaster DIRECTV, owned by Hughes Electronics, but EchoStar outflanked it and won the bidding.

NDS said EchoStar was trying to join Canal's piracy suit as a way of deflecting attention from recent reports that regulatory authorities in the U.S. were opposed to EchoStar's merger with DIRECTV.

DIRECTV has also filed suit against NDS and is claiming similar theft of trade secrets that Canal and Echostar are claiming. In mid-September NDS called those charges "without merit" and said it planned to assert counterclaims against DIRECTV.