AMD Subpoenas to Stop Document Destruction

cyberfunk2 writes "It appears that a court has granted AMD a "no-shred" request with respect to documents related to its' charges of Intel anticompetitive behavior. 9 of the 32 companies subpoenaed so far have said they will adhere to the order. The 9 are Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, NEC, Rackable Systems, Sony, Sun, Tech Data and Circuit City. Others have promised to respond soon."

Comments

What about electronic shredding ?

[Arthur B.]

I guess they have many electronic documents as well... Does the order apply to "not deleting the file". More specifically, how do they intend to enforce this order ! They can't obviously sit and ensure that no shredding is performed or no document is deleted !

Re:What about electronic shredding ?

[rokzy]

the point is that now this order is made, if someone claims they "accidentally" deleted something then they still go to jail. it shifts burden of proof from AMD proving the document was incriminating to other people proving it wasn't.

Re:What about electronic shredding ?

[Maagma]

All of these companies have document retention policies and this includes digital files (as well as email!), but most digital files are stored on hard copy anyway. An employee could lose his job for deleting or destroying a file outside of normal document retention policies. In general it is more advantageous to keep files for a short while because it saves headaches of getting that information from a person if the company is involved in a court battle.

Re:Check out AMD's misdeed

[Trigun]

AMD

* Outsourcer of jobs to overseas, according to CNN's Lou Dobbs, at a time when huge numbers of US tech workers are unemployed.

Ooooh, that's a huge misdeed, and I trust Lou Dobbs with my life!

And from the same link:
"The purpose of the new capitalism is to shoot the wounded."
Andy Grove, Intel Chairman
[leading to monopolies? to cartels? to fascism?]

* Class-action suit alleging that the Pentium IV is slower than the Pentium III despite Intel's marketing hype. Info here

* Supported California Proposition 64, which prevents many just lawsuits against corporate criminals. info

* Theft of $1.969 billion as "tax breaks" from US Taxpayers between 2001-2003, thanks to legally-bribed politicians. Information here.

* Intel received $300 million in tax breaks from localities over 30 years ending 1993 despite being a major polluter. More information here.

* Intel was caught in a $600 billion tax-evasion scheme. Info.

* Intel tried to have an ex-employee Kenneth Hamidi prosecuted for trespassing when he sent emails to former ex-coworkers at their work email addresses. His emails contained criticism of the company. Intel ultimately failed. More info here and here.

* Intel is currently polluting at Corrales, New Mexico

So difficult to do business anymore.

[bigtallmofo]

Imagine you work at one of these 32 companies and you're dilligently working on a project that's going fantastically. Suddenly because of some lawsuit that you have nothing to do with and the company only tangentially has any relationship with one of the two parties, you have to stop working on your project so that you can immediately begin a document preservation project.

I'm not saying AMD isn't within their rights, I'm just making the observation that it's getting so difficult to do business anymore. Bad enough companies have to dodge copyright, trademark and patent infringement cases all day for things they actually do. Add to that cases that they had little or nothing to do with, but they might have some document that some other company sent to them.

Re:So difficult to do business anymore.

[Mr2cents]

Why on earth would anyone want to delete e-mail? Mine isn't only preserved forever and ever (unless if it's spam), it's also backed up. You're not telling me you never wanted to search for an old e-mail sent to you a year ago.

All those thousands of mails won't take up 20$ worth of diskpace.

Outsourcing is not a 'misdeed'. It's a competitive

[Anonymous Coward]

necessity.

Would you rather AMD go out of business?
Their competition outsources and so must they.

nntznnr

Re:How Much Paperwork Can a Lawyer Process?

[Glock27]

Perhaps they are doing this for deterrence purposes? ie, to keep Intel from continuing its practices during the trial?

Yes, Intel will have to be much more careful since if they engage in illegal practices and the vendor decides to nail them, it will look very bad in court. "Despite ongoing legal proceedings, Intel has engaged yet again in...".

It'll be interesting to see if there's a perceptible uptick in AMD marketshare after this...

Re:Check out AMD's misdeed

[Anonymous Coward]

So when outsourcing goes to first world nations it's OK, but when the business goes to places that actually need the money it's bad?

Re:How Much Paperwork Can a Lawyer Process?

[Dan Ost]

Also, even if the court battle drags on for years and never resolves, in the
meantime, Intel is pressured to not engage in the types of behavior that this
battle is about. Essentially, just starting the court battle protects AMD
from additional actions by Intel that might appear anti-competative.

It's also free advertising for AMD and hurts Intel's public image.

What's the Big Deal?

[sweetnjguy29]

This is a typical motion granted by judges in litigation. The order simply states that the company preserve its documents. The company under the order has to implement certain policies to preserve documents for litigation. That would include not shredding files or deleting electronic files. Keep in mind that questioning the bejeezus out of company executives about how documents are handled is a very effective litigation technique since most large companies, if they are smart, have detailed document retention policies. And most employees don't follow them to the letter. Which looks very bad.