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AMD Government The Courts Hardware News

AMD Subpoenas to Stop Document Destruction 141

Posted by samzenpus from the all-sue dept.
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."
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AMD Subpoenas to Stop Document Destruction More

AMD Subpoenas to Stop Document Destruction

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  • What about electronic shredding ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arthur B. ( 806360 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:48AM (#13001942)
    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 ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:51AM (#13001984)
      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.
      • It hardly shifts the burden of proof such that all deleted documents must now be proven to contain no incriminating data. What school of law did you attend again?
        • > What school of law did you attend again?

          I don't know about him, but *my* law degree starts with the initials, "IANAL". It sounds pretty prestigious, because I see a lot of other slashdot posters with the same law degree as me. It also seems to inspire confidence and awe, because everytime I open my arguments with these initials, the judge chuckles quietly and my opponents shake their heads in disbelief (regardless of whether they represent the plaintiff or the defendent). I know I still lose a lot
      • it shifts burden of proof from AMD proving the document was incriminating to other people proving it wasn't.

        WTF? So instead of innocent until proven guilty, the court order means that Intel and others will be guilty until proven innocent? Shredding documents now means that the companies will be in contempt of court, not that they will be automatically incriminated by a now non-existent document.
        • > WTF? So instead of innocent until proven guilty...

          Innocent until proven guilty really only applies as the -black and white- form in criminal cases. Since this is a civil suit, there are degrees of guilty and innocent.
          • Innocent until proven guilty really only applies as the -black and white- form in criminal cases. Since this is a civil suit, there are degrees of guilty and innocent.

            Yes, but one is still presumed innocent unless the prosecution can convince a judge/jury otherwise. The burden of proof is less -- preponderence of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt -- but it still does require proof.
        • IANAL, but I would think that Intel would theoretically be guilty of something like Contempt of Court if there were evidence of shredding after the fact.

          Perhaps the penalty is more than this due to measures like the Sarb-Ox Act?

          In any event, I doubt it would make their guilt/innocent significantly more or less in question.
    • 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.
    • My wife would be awesome at a document preservation job- she still has birthday cards from her grandmother from 20 years ago, and the movie stub from our first date.
      Maybe these companies could hire armies of "scrapbookers." Imagine all the emails and docs saved artisticly, with cute frills and interesting stamps. Your Honor, the document in question, is the one with the unicorn sticker on it...
      I know Banks have very strict retention requirements, but seriously, who is going to pay for all this storage cap
    • 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

      Files can be deleted, but if tapes go missing or don't pass integrity checks, you know someone was mucking around.

      Even fairly small corporations/businesses use complex backup plans, with redundancy, off-site storage, etc.

      You're also assuming most

    • I guess you'd have to order employees to stop biting their fingernails [slashdot.org] too.

  • How Much Paperwork Can a Lawyer Process? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DanielMarkham ( 765899 ) * on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:48AM (#13001955) Homepage
    The nature of the complaint sounds awful, and AMD certainly has a very competitive product that Intel is trying to quash. I can't help but wonder, though, at how difficult it is going to be to prove the charges AMD makes, and even if they are proved, by the time years have passed and the judgement is made, the market will be way down the road. Look at the Microsoft browser case: while there was relief granted, did it really make a difference by the time it was given?
    In addition, the sheer volume of paperwork requested (38 companies) indicates that this is going to be huge and take time to prosecute. While that's great for the lawyers, I'm not so sure it serves the interests of their client. Aside from a insignificant (relatively speaking) award and the lawyers getting paid, I can't remember one tech company suing another and actually coming out on top of the market years later. Perhaps they are doing this for deterrence purposes? ie, to keep Intel from continuing its practices during the trial?

    Easy For You to Say [whattofix.com]

    • Re:How Much Paperwork Can a Lawyer Process? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cybersaga ( 451046 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:59AM (#13002087) Homepage
      Aside from a insignificant (relatively speaking) award and the lawyers getting paid, I can't remember one tech company suing another and actually coming out on top of the market years later. Perhaps they are doing this for deterrence purposes? ie, to keep Intel from continuing its practices during the trial?

      Remember that AMD's sales are not declining because of Intel, as Netscape usage shrunk because of IE. AMD has been growing, but has seemed to hit a cap, or a block in the road that they can't pass because of Intel's actions. So during this trial, they won't be losing or dying, but they'll simply be at a stand-still. Once Intel's actions are eliminated, AMD will be free to continue growing.

      • Re:How Much Paperwork Can a Lawyer Process? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dan Ost ( 415913 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @10:12AM (#13003031)
        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.
      • I would have to disagree that AMD has it a cap. I mean to me, it seems like their more popular than ever. With all their latest processors proving to be better than Intel's, it seems like all my friends have AMD's these days. Now, I can see where the big PC vendor market has a lot more effect than what my buddies buy, but eventually, it trickles around and it seems as more people would start to buy AMD.
        • Yes, AMD has a better product in my own opinion than Intel.

          Open up the advertising for Best Buy or Circuit City or any other retailer that sells computers. How many of the systems do you see containing AMD chips versus Intel chips? Why is it for every AMD computer I see, I see 10 or 20 Intel computers?

          More people ARE buying AMD chips, but AMD is arguing that even MORE people would buy them if Intel wasn't using anti-competetive practices against them.

          As a side note: You and your friends are a great and i
      • ...AMD will be free to continue growing.

        Into what? Who needs another Intel? We need to take the Alpha chip's IP away and get it back on the streets. The factory that picks up on it will make a bundle. Dumb and dumber is not competition. And with Apple taking the low road, that goes double. Now we lost the PPC, leaving us with Intel and a wannabe.
    • 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...

      • A good Intel lawyer will make sure that it can't happen like that though.

        They will say everythign has to be within the time frame of the fileing date backwards by the statatory limitation on whatever they are suing for (allowing for a little more time soley to establish background).

        Of course AMDs lawyers will ask open ended questions to the defense hoping that someone slips up and opens the window for a line of questions about the continuing practice.

        As to the Grandparents subject, I don't know for sure
    • I'm not so sure it serves the interests of their client

      How can you even think this PR free-for-all isn't serving their client's interest? This whole thing is all about publicity. Think about it... First the court case which has doubious legal standing at best. The complaint was a hand-crafted PR piece. Did you read it? The 1-page ads in the papers the next day? The constant daily spewage of press releases since then? Deterrence purposes my ass... this is purely PR motivated.
    • Actually, a lawyer (or legal team) can process an insane amount of paperwork rather swiftly.

      I work for a company that provides document scanning software to do OCR, document endorsing, tagging and other scanning related tasks. We market our high volume product to what is coined a "copy-shop", where a litigation firm will take several boxes containing tens or hundreds of thousands of documents. On some scanners our high volume product is capable of scanning and processing > 6000 documents per hour. We

    • and even if they are proved, by the time years have passed and the judgement is made, the market will be way down the road. Look at the Microsoft browser case: while there was relief granted, did it really make a difference by the time it was given?

      The difference is, AMD has revenue, Netscape didn't, or any revenue to speak of at least. AMD's roadmap is competitive, and they've also been competing against Intel for so long that they know how to run lean. There's no comparison b/t this case and the MS a

  • 'scuse my ignorance (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:51AM (#13001985) Journal
    How can you tell whether an organisation is shredding or not if they do it covertly? After all, if you have something to hide why are you going to worry about someone telling you to stop if you think you can cover your tracks - or is this like the infamous "have you stopped beating your wife?" question?
    • It's really on the honor system. No one will be standing by the shredder to prevent shredding. However, the courts are displeased when companies and people defy an order. Most of the respondents were supposedly victims of Intel's anti-competitive behavior and don't really have much to hide. The one that seems they have most to hide is Toshiba. Maybe there are records unrelated to Intel that they do not wish revealed.
    • There are things like archive numbers and stuff. And it looks suspicious, if suddenly those numbers aren't complete anymore.

    • Re:'scuse my ignorance (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mrscorpio ( 265337 ) <twoheadedboyNO@SPAMstonepool.com> on Thursday July 07, 2005 @09:19AM (#13002341)
      If they ask for "incriminating document #23521 from 5/6/03" and they don't have it, but have "unincriminating documents #23520 from 5/5/03 and #23522 from 5/7/03", they're fucked and the responsible parties (and their boss, and their boss's boss) will go to jail.

      The point in a document retention policy is:

      1. Having a written policy
      2. It needs to make sense (e.g. that deleting all e-mail after 60 days one in another post sounds a little shady)
      3. It needs to be followed consistently (e.g., these documents are kept for this long and then shredded within this amount of time. Any significant deviation from this is bad)
    • It's mainly the honor system "enforced" by two things: 1) the more people that know about something the harder it is to keep it secret and 2) most people aren't willing to go to jail just to protect their company's shareholders.
    • She was convicted of obstructing justice rather than actual stock fraud. This court order gives AMD another thing to choke Intel & co. with since people now have to start worrying everytime they hit the delete key. There might even be a chance that they could get blackmail material on Intel if they find out that someone did shred something. E.g. we won't go after you for violating a court order and send you to prison if you help us take out your company"
  • Otherwise the court won't ask the company to keep their document/file. This case probably will take a while to settle...

  • Waiting to respond (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Others have promised to respond soon.

    Yeah, hang on, we'll send in our response as soon as we're done shredding these last few tons of paper.

  • Heh (Score:2, Funny)

    by rsax ( 603351 )
    Others have promised to respond soon.

    Once we have shredded the necessary documents.

    • It's in the best interest of those who had to comply to Intel's terms to help AMD. Thanks to this they will be able to offer wider range of hardware and therefore be more attractive to customers.

  • Good news for AMD (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cybersaga ( 451046 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:52AM (#13002004) Homepage
    Even without Toshiba, or the other 22 comapanies that have not responded or made a decision yet, AMD still has some big guns on their side.

    Those 9 companies are big names and could win the case for them if indeed they have the evidence AMD is hoping for.

  • "Promised to respond soon"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:53AM (#13002019)
    Please wait... Here, last document....

    OK, now we promise we won't destroy any more documents.
    • "Promised to respond soon"?
      I think the conversation went something like this...

      Ring Ring
      Hello? WHAT? I can barely hear you, YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP! Can you hold on a second.
      How many times do I have to tell you, you can't put that many pieces of paper through at once.
      Sorry I'll have to get back to you our shredders are working oevrtime trying to get rid of all these documents
      • <VOICE type="sprint-guy">
        We told them to "Ship the Enron documents to the Feds", but what they heard was "Rip the Enron documents to shreds".

        It was all just a case of bad cellular.
        </VOICE>

  • Others will respod soon.... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As soon as the shredder cools down a bit.

  • So difficult to do business anymore. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @08:56AM (#13002049)
    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.
    • No, you don't have to stop. Just don't delete your old mail, and drop all your spare papers in a separate box instead of a waste basket. You're not requested to produce any kind of evidence, just not to dispose of any you have already.
      • Just don't delete your old mail, and drop all your spare papers in a separate box instead of a waste basket.

        How nice for you that you don't work at a company that has an email retention policy that is automatically enforced. Many large companies do today. If I leave an email in any folder for more than 60 days, it's automatically deleted. Oh, and my deleted bin in Outlook is cleaned out every night automatically. Oh, and corporate has disabled the use of PST files. Of course, all these things can be
        • That sounds like a poorly designed policy. It also doesn't mean that all incoming emails aren't automatically stored on the mail server, regardless of what the user does. The server that we use keeps ALL emails that are sent or received through it. That's just the way it works.
        • Dear sweet mother of Odin, that's a bad policy to have in place! From an IT perspective it is just stupid. And as someone who has to manage such things, "a lot of time and engery" is a gross overstatement of how much effort it takes server side to change those policies.
        • Pththt!!!

          Retention policies don't factor in. Company's are required by law to be able to put a hold on their documents as needed, regardless of the company's retention policies. If there's an automatic retention schedule going on, and the courts say "no shredding", someone stops the retention schedule. Failure to do so results in legal consequences (such as "destruction of potentially incriminating data").
        • 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.
          • I couldn't agree more, although companies usually have retention policies not as a cost saving matter, but as a legal matter.

            If the company auto-deletes all email more than 30 days old, then when a lawsuit comes along alleging that two years ago the company took some damaging action, nobody can subpoena all the emails from back then and see what really happened.

            Of course, companies still get in trouble. They get sued over something and stop destroying some class of documents. Then they say something stu

          • 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.

            Well, there's two perspectives on that. And individual users can really confound a company.

            By law, certain types of records must be kept for a period of time.

            If, at the end of that time, nobody has filed court action, you not only can delete the file, you almost legally must (or

            • Thanks for the reply.

              But why should an e-mail record be viewed only as something negative, you could also make your case of innocence with it. I think deleting e-mail creates an image that the company is using dirty tactics (maybe falsely). Isn't this mostly an irrational fear without a real basis? Or am I naive, and is every company trying to screw their competitors with every conceivable illegal tactic they can think of?

        • How nice for you that you don't work at a company that has an email retention policy that is automatically enforced. Many large companies do today. If I leave an email in any folder for more than 60 days, it's automatically deleted.

          Then it's probably not your problem. If your company gets a no-shred policy and they don't disable the policies you describe, you really have no way to comply, so it probably won't come down on your head.

        • I used to work for a company that had a similar policy and we actually got a "do not shred" order. It is actually VERY easy to comply with these orders (at least the one we got). It doesn't say where anything has to be stored or anything. We just kept the normal policy in place, but the tapes of nightly backups were just kept. This cost a little bit more as we needed quite a bit more tapes than usual (since we had a rotation system and now we kept them all), but not a big deal.

          Just because you need t
    • 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.

      I dont know what you have been reading, but they had something to do with it, thats why they are being ordered to stop shreding documents!

      If i tell you to jump to the river and you do it, and die in the process, is your fault for being stupid (maybe if
    • If you are in the testing phase of a shredder development project.

    • Re:So difficult to do business anymore. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @10:47AM (#13003487)
      I'd say that is the case here and we are not bothered by AMD's lawsuit. Our managers have informed us of the case and gave the coordinates of our lawyer responsible for it. That's pretty much it, life is normal.

      I can't imagine anyone being sidetracked for a document preservation project. To me this case is good for those 32 companies (unless one is Intel), it will ensure that we continue to get the best prices on our product without being forced into vendor lock in. If only we could find a way to put Microsoft in its place (practically).

    • I know you're saying that AMD has a right to sue, but you're still placing the onus of blame on them, and not on Intel, who, it appears, is guilty of anticompetitive behavior. It is Intel, not AMD, who is to blame for these companies' wasted time. If they hadn't broken antitrust laws, then there would be no lawsuit (assuming, of course, Intel is guilty).

  • We apologize for the inconvienence (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sierpinski ( 266120 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @09:02AM (#13002122)
    Those responsible for shredding the important documents, have been sacked. ...

    We apologize again for the inconvienence. Those responsible for sacking the people who were shredding documents have also been sacked. ...

    A moose once bit my sister...

  • No Shred Request? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Evil W1zard ( 832703 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @09:09AM (#13002208) Journal
    Man it is totally unfair to not allow them to skateboard during this!
  • My only qualms about this lawsuit have to do with AMD's wonderful pricing. We all know that lawsuits take time and, most of all, money. AMD can sue Intel all it wants, but they cannot pass on the price of the lawsuit to their customers, lest its prices be raised nearer to that of its sworn enemy.
    • That ain't going to happen unless Chipzilla would actually release something worthy of competition at the same time as being sued.

  • Its'? (Score:1)

    by Radak ( 126696 )
    Are we just putting apostrophes anywhere we damn well please now? It's bad enough when people think "it's" is a proper possessive (it isn't), but now you're just sticking them places to your heart's content?

    The Angry Flower can help you. See rule 3. http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif [angryflower.com]

    • Re:Its'? (Score:2)

      by Tx ( 96709 )
      I agree with most of your point, but the rule on possesives is stupid, and stupid rules should be changed. If an inanimate object can be placed in a possesive construct in exactly the same way as a noun object, then it should be punctuated the same way. It's silly unintuitive gotchas like that that cause confusion and lead to people sticking apostrophes all over the place.
      • Think of its (the possessive) the same way you think of mine, yours, hers, his, ours, and theirs. Pronouns are NOT nouns and possessive pronouns do NOT have apostrophes. Its is not the only one, it is not an exception, and therefore it is not an unintuitive gotcha.

        • Re:Its'? (Score:2)

          by mph ( 7675 )
          Think of its (the possessive) the same way you think of mine, yours, hers, his, ours, and theirs. Pronouns are NOT nouns and possessive pronouns do NOT have apostrophes. Its is not the only one, it is not an exception, and therefore it is not an unintuitive gotcha.
          The unintuitive gotcha is, of course, the pronoun that does take an apostrophe in its possessive: one's.
      • consider my, our, your, his, her, their. count the apotrophies. Why sould its be different.
    • I dont know about you guys, but I agree with Radak totally. Apostrophie's just can't be used lightly. Bush put a lot of money into No Child Left Behind, and I'm disgusted at it's inability to teach American's proper grammer. Its sickening. If you don't know how to use apostrophys' then there are schools', books', web'sites', and all kind's of resources for you to better your's'e'l'f.
    • You know people.. when i was typing the story in, I knew it was wrong.. I saw it, and my english teaching said.. nooooo.. but then the rest of me said.. I Dont CARE !

  • I Would Assume Many Companies... (Score:4, Informative)

    by geoffrobinson ( 109879 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @09:16AM (#13002297) Homepage
    if Intel is doing what AMD alledges, I would assume many third-party companies resent what Intel is doing. Shred? They may secretly help AMD behind the scenes for all we know.

    They may not want to be held hostage.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Larry Ellison to hire a bunch of PIs to hang out at the dumpster.

    =)
  • 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 rete

  • AMD (Score:1, Redundant)

    by IPFreely ( 47576 )
    Attornies of Mass Destruction
    Attornies of Mass Documentation

  • Dell? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FatherOfONe ( 515801 ) on Thursday July 07, 2005 @12:06PM (#13004307)
    Why did they not bother with Dell?

    Is seems obvious to me that Dell is getting something for not using AMD chips. A company that was so open about wanting to build a freaking Macintosh X86 computer would not EVER use an AMD chip?

    So on one hand they will build a computer, that "may" be radically different than any other they have produced, for say 2% of the market, and of that market a large percentage would still only buy from Apple. But they won't use AMD for ANY systems??? I am willing to bet that AMD would make up far more than the fraction of a percentage of their sales...

    • I'm no lawyer, but I presume that AMD may wish to use this lawsuit to sell to Dell. If they truely are getting a fringe benefit for playing Intel exclusive, I would imagine there is some law out there that punishes them as well for participating. At the very least, an ongoing suit with Intel suggests that Dell start offering AMD computers unless they WANT to be added to the list...
    • They did bother with Dell, and they said they'd respond in time.

      RTFA
      • Got me :-)

        I will read the article next time. I just thought it was weird that it wasn't mentioned in the headline. Dell being the largest PC company.

  • I worked at Intel as a co-op a few years ago. It seems that at one point they had "Pack Rat Days," basically, a day in the year when everyone went through their desks, took all of the old and unused papers and such, and tossed them in a provided dumpster. I asked after the tradition while I was there. They said that anti-trust suits had made them stop.

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