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Western Digital Gets US Court Order To Access Toshiba Databases, Chip Samples (reuters.com)
Western Digital won a temporary U.S. court order on Tuesday saying that Toshiba must allow Western Digital's employees to access databases and chip samples as part of a joint venture with Toshiba around flash memory chip plants in Japan. Reuters reports: Toshiba is scrambling to sell its flash memory business and Western Digital is among the bidders. In a sign of high tensions around the deal, Toshiba threatened to lock Western Digital out of shared databases and quit sending chip samples. Western Digital sued Toshiba in San Francisco County Superior Court saying that its joint venture with Toshiba means Toshiba must get its consent for a sale. It asked the court for two separate orders: An injunction to stop the sale, and a temporary restraining order forcing Toshiba to give its workers access to shared databases. A judge granted the temporary order for access to the shared databases Tuesday and set a further hearing on July 28.
In short, WD and Toshiba had a joint venture on NAND Flash (Toshiba designed and manufactured the chips, while Western Digital packaged them and sold them inside SSDs). Toshiba's main parent is having financial issues because of unexpected losses in its nuclear reactor division (because of a botched up acquisition of Westinghouse which included a construction company which was hiding massive losses). Western Digital bid too low. The Japanese government wants Japanese investors to step up and buy the company. Other companies in the bidding included Hon Hai (i.e. Foxconn China), and Broadcom. WD allegedly sued because they want to make sure when the NAND Flash division is spun off and sold they retain rights they had under the joint venture.