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Judge Gives Intel More Time To Find Missing E-mail

Posted by samzenpus on from the look-hard dept.

narramissic writes "ITworld is reporting that Intel has until April 17 (7 days more than the original deadline of April 10) to 'explain to a judge why it lost e-mail records that could provide proof that the chip maker used anticompetitive practices as alleged by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD).' According to an order from Vincent Poppiti, the special master hearing negotiations of the case, the court is looking for an accounting of Intel's document preservation problems and a proposal for a better solution for archiving future records."

16 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. They could try the truth... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... we can't find them because we deleted them.

    1. Re:They could try the truth... by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
      > ... we can't find them because we deleted them.

      Hey, whaddya think this is, the SCO case? :)

    2. Re:They could try the truth... by ZDRuX · · Score: 5, Informative

      ... we can't find them because we deleted them. Actually... that's exactly what they did.

      That process hit a snag when Intel said in March it had accidentally deleted many of those records, including e-mail written by its Chairman Craig Barrett and CEO Paul Ottelini. The problem happened because the company failed to instruct certain employees to keep records of their own e-mail, other employees assumed the IT department would do that task for them, and meanwhile the company's IT system was automatically deleting most e-mail after a certain amount of time, Intel told a judge.

      and...

      "Although Intel has agreed to restore all data captured in the thousands of backup tapes it made and preserved, no one can say with any degree of confidence that this will put Humpty-Dumpty back together again," AMD said in a March 5 court statement.
      --
      The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    3. Re:They could try the truth... by Hotawa+Hawk-eye · · Score: 2, Funny

      Of course GP doesn't think this is the SCO case. They said Intel could try the truth.

  2. I call poppycock by Cervantes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This whole thing sounds like crap from Intel. "Whoops, your honour, we, a giant, multibillion dollar organization, staffed with the brightest engineering and IT minds that money can buy, accidentally forgot to keep email archives. TeeHee. No idea how that happened. Oh well, since there's no evidence of our transgressions thanks to this 'oopsie', we'll just go home now..."

    I mean, does anyone actually believe that they forgot to uncheck that annoying little box in Exchange labelled "Delete all incriminating emails after 30 days"? I could believe that a few emails got misplaced, even believe that one set of tapes was damaged or corrupted... but "the staff wasn't doing it, IT didn't think about it, and the system was automatically deleting them"?

    I think I may just keep buying AMD, mostly because I'm worried that Intel quality control is about the same as their IT competence, and I'll open up my new Core Duo to find a severed human finger in there.
    (but safely wrapped in a clean room suit).

    --
    If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
    1. Re:I call poppycock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's actually more difficult than you might suppose to put in place a policy controlling this sort of thing. People don't normally consider their day to day correspondence to be potential legal material (though it obviously is) and as such unless very strong controls are put in place from the top (with consequences for not following the rules) it is quite difficult to manage correspondence and other such records. You can't expect people to spontaneously do it without a system in place, as they are doing Real Work and not thinking about preserving all the annoying little day to day stuff. Most companies do not build a robust structure in their early days due to lack of resources (startups usually have enough problems doing enough to make money period), so the bootstrap problem is almost universal.

      If Intel didn't have a system in place from the get go (I don't know, since I don't work there), it is rather difficult to impose such a system - on the day you try to start the new system all the critical information is in the old stuff, and unless you take the time to port it forward you'll be dealing with BOTH the annoyance of digging it out of the old setup and the annoyance of fitting it into the new setup. It's usually easier in the short term to ignore the new system unless (again) management makes a point out of insisting on it being followed and puts a lot of energy into making sure things are the way they are supposed to be.

      The bottom line is most people are trying to do their jobs and make something work, not prepare for a hypothetical lawsuit. Big businesses need to be much more careful about this sort of thing (I suppose any business should really, but large ones have deep pockets) but without a strong policy, the will to get it in place properly and port old stuff to a new system (which never helps the bottom line, I might add) it is just a tough thing to do.

      People tend to think of big corporations as these well oiled machines, but there are people in them who are just like you and me - they just want to get the frigging thing done and go home, and messing with the corporate document retention system is one more headache without immediate benefit.

    2. Re:I call poppycock by Dausha · · Score: 4, Informative

      "...No idea how that happened. Oh well, since there's no evidence of our transgressions thanks to this 'oopsie', we'll just go home now..."

      Except, it does not exactly work like that. Law is more experience than reason; courts know that if you have evidence that points to your guilt you're more likely to "lose" it. So, when the plaintiff can prove you probably had evidence showing your guilt and you fail to produce it, the court can allow a negative inference to be drawn. This means the judge will tell the jury that the defendant likely had incriminating evidence and destroyed it and that the jury is free to assume it was destroyed to cover the defendant's ass.

      I clerked for a plaintiff's firm that was good at this sort of thing. The attorney tended to have defendants who had dispatch records that were destroyed quarterly by standard operating procedure (SOP) (required by law that they have _a_ SOP). However, one defendant had a special SOP to destroy such tapes as soon as frigg'n possible when something bad happened---like three separate, fatal accidents caused by its company on one day recorded on one dispatch tape. The request for the tape was made within a couple of weeks and "oops," the defendant lost it. The Court had a field day with the defendant.

      The problem, however, is that a gullible jury can be persuaded that the adage "never assume malice where incompetence will suffice" is in play.

      Here there was probably an email retention SOP that was violated by these emails going missing. In that case, the judge is probably giving Intel another week to settle or come up with the emails or allow AMD to move for a negative inference that it will more likely win.

      --
      What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
    3. Re:I call poppycock by Viceroy+Potatohead · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'll open up my new Core Duo to find a severed human finger in there.

      I wouldn't worry about that too much, it'd probably just be an empty threat to keep you loyal, and have nothing to do with quality. When I switched OS I woke up the next day with a horse's head in the bed next to me, and "WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO TODAY?" written on the wall in blood. AFAICT, it's all perfectly harmless.

    4. Re:I call poppycock by jimmydevice · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know about the process side of Intel, but the engineering side uses a yearly process named FOCAL (ya, like that old DEC language) that pits employee against employee with a cut-throat review process graded on a curve. The curve assures the group has a minimum of top achevers and a number of "shape up or ship out" unfortunates, even if the whole group consists of A+ workers. This keeps the crew in terror and pay raises to a minimum. And no, I was just a contractor and didn't go through that crap.

  3. Never understood by pembo13 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    why people expect others to keep incriminating, or even non-incriminating emails

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    1. Re:Never understood by RedElf · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just route all mail to /dev/null, that solves the problem.

      --
      You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
    2. Re:Never understood by ZDRuX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I`m not a lawyer or anything but.. I think when you're a corporation of this size and so much influence, you're expected to keep records of everything that happens, and be publically responsible for any harm you do, should someone question your procedure in court.

      NOW! On a different note.. if you are going to be writing emails about how to screw over another company, why in the world would you do it in a tracable way? Why not meet over a lunch dinner, or maybe even do it over the phone?.. Bah, use an outside hotmail account if you really have to!

      --
      The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  4. Document retention. by joe_bruin · · Score: 3, Informative

    These email lapses and information destruction policies are becoming turning points in lawsuits all too often. It is absurd that major corporations are not required to keep all executive email on record, forever. Not just for lawsuits, more so to protect investors and the public against illegal and unethical behavior by the company's officers. The Sarbanes-Oxley act requires that records be made available to "Understand how significant transactions are initiated, authorized, supported, processed, and reported;", and I would think email is a significant component of this.

  5. Uh huh....sure.... by kcbrown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    FTFA:

    That process hit a snag when Intel said in March it had accidentally deleted many of those records, including e-mail written by its Chairman Craig Barrett and CEO Paul Ottelini.

    Yeah, sure. Email sent by the corporate executives accidentally deleted?

    People get their asses fired and sued for much less than that.

    The people responsible for the email of the executives don't do anything of the sort unless they're explicitly told to.

    So I think it's about as likely that the email messages in question got "accidentally" deleted as it is that the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was "accidentally" bombed.

    --
    Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
    1. Re:Uh huh....sure.... by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Funny

      So I think it's about as likely that the email messages in question got "accidentally" deleted as it is that the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was "accidentally" bombed.

      Oh, I can explain that one.
      You see, apparently there was a gross misunderstanding of the commander's lunch order of "Take-out, Chinese".
  6. Seen it all before by GFree · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This reminds me of politicians who have to testify at a hearing for whatever indecent they've managed to get themselves involved with.

    "Sorry, I have no memory of that event."
    "Sorry, I have no recollection of that phone call."
    "Sorry, I cannot recall that conversation."

    Unfortunately we're screwed either way. If they're lying, then they can't be trusted to run a country. If they're telling the truth, then they have shown an extraordinary inability to remember important details, they have chronic memory problems and as such they still can't be trusted to run a country.