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Rambus Destroyed Evidence In Anti-trust Trial
Marasmus writes "CNN is reporting that memory-chip maker Rambus has been found guilty of destroying evidence which was 'critical' to the anti-trust case brought by the U.S. government. Interestingly, the Judge has denied the FTC's request to move on to the penalty phase of the trial. Destruction of evidence in an anti-trust case normally yields a forfeiture of trial, but Rambus 'will have the burden of proving its innocence" instead.'
Do you know how hard it is to prove your innocence? Think about it - if someone accuses you of a crime you didn't commit, and you have to prove your innocence, can you? In most cases, not likely. That's why the usual standard in criminal cases is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".
Of course, civil cases are different - then it's the "preponderance of the probabilities".
The credibility of American business went into the shitter ever since Enron was caught for it's sleazy practices. I predict in the next five or more years there will a shakedown on sleazy business. At least, let's hope. Part of the western recession is due to the discovery of unethical business tactics. America's business credibility relies on the way the courts handle corporations that choose sleazy tactics.
Does the government regulate this, or do individual companies simply decide a policy?
;)
Well similar to you or I, they must retain documents that the IRS or SEC (ok not you or I relative to the SEC) would find "meaningful". Consider this, do you save your credit card statements, phone bills? If so, for how long. You typically don't need these things for "official" purposes (business use not withstanding). Would your shredding of these documents be construed as you eliminating potentially incriminating purchases or conversations. If you're not under investigation, then no. But if you are, then they could be. This is of course a VERY grey area, what is relevant to what situation? Definitely hard to nail down. Of course the govt could always enforce a "100% document retention policy"
The man in the black robe says they did, it doesn't much matter what Rambus says about it at that point.
It shifts them to presumed guilty, which sucks for them.
And the fact that they went into JEDEC meetings to help define an open standard and then patented things being developed there. The RAMBUS saga is about abuse of the processes used to develop new standards. Rambus has yet to be properly dealt with for that, and that make an update on their case "News for Nerds" as much as anything.
Rambus says they legally destroyed the documents, a Judge says they illegally destroyed the documents. Rambus is useless.
:-)
HOWEVER, regardless of a company's retention policy, it is illegal to destroy documents related to a government investigation once the company is aware an investigation will occur or is likely to occur. This is what got Arther Anderson in trouble, they knew an investigation was coming and then destroyed documents. This is also why a written policy is important, and that it be strictly observed. That way in court it is easy to defend the statement we destroy all documents older than X months automatically. We did not destroy them because an investigation was coming.
So what exactly is their policy? Does the government regulate this, or do individual companies simply decide a policy?
There are certain kinds of documents that must retained for the SEC or IRS, but beyond that you can normally have pretty much any policy you want. But if you destroy documents after you are notified that there is an investigation, that is a crime. In other words, when notified of an investigation you must immediately suspend document destruction.
will have the burden of proving its innocence
Some people are acting like this is some kind of huge gift. It's not. Normally they would be presumed innocent unless the government could prove their guilt. Now they are presumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that position!
Also note that the full quote is:
the company will have the burden of proving its innocence on some allegations
The article doesn't explain whether that means that they are now considered guilty on other allegations, or whether the evidence destroyed only relates to some of the allegations and so trial should proceed normally on other allegations. My guess is the latter.
The article includes a graph that shows a steep drop-off of their stock price.
The very first thing you do is to look at the numbers on the axes of the graph. The vertical axis of the graph is price of one stock share in dollars, but the graph goes from $15.43 down to $13.86, so that steep drop-off wasn't as steep as the graph makes it look. If you plot the same numbers on a graph that goes from $16 down to $0, it's not nearly as dramatic. The stock price fell by about 10.6%, while the graph makes it look more like 100%.
To learn more about tricky graphs and other misleading charts, read How to Lie with Statistics, a truly great and fun book.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
It's seems obvious that they did wrong in adjusting their patents during and after the JEDEC process, without disclosing their patent knowledge or intents to the body at large. I can just hear the conversation: "Let's sit in on this standards body, write down their ideas, quielty patent them, wait for them to be implemented, hire lots of lawyers, and start suing everybody!!"
If they had been (or are) allowed to get away with their behavior in regards to that standards body, it undermines the ability of all companies to cooperatively design and create standards in good faith.
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
Palladium has an interest to not only corporate America but also microsoft since they can destroy any document at will and have the encrypted filesystem hide any evidence that it even existed. The doj can never bother them again.
http://saveie6.com/
Dean G.
Lets face it people, a train isn't glamerous technology, but it is a lot cheaper to keep running per mile than any other transportation technology out there. If you go to India or China, you don't see interstates or large fancy airports outside of the main cities. You do have rail going to any place with a post office, though.
In my opinion, the only reason cars, gas, and air travel is so important in this country has everything to do with bad habits and short thinking. The stock guy on the radio said it best the other day with the quote: "... of course that was back when long term meant years, not minutes or hours ... "
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
And which department of Rambus do YOU work in?
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur