AMD Claims Intel Inadvertently Destroyed Evidence in Antitrust Case

Marcus Yam writes "In an unpublished statement to the U.S. District Court of Delaware, AMD alleges Intel allowed the destruction of evidence in pending antitrust litigation. According to the opening letter of the AMD statement, 'Through what appears to be a combination of gross communication failures, an ill-conceived plan of document retention and lackluster oversight by outside counsel, Intel has apparently allowed evidence to be destroyed.'"

Re:Data Retention part is True

[networkBoy]

No, it's server resource protection.
If something is needed for archival, then it can be stored appropriately. The simple truth is the bulk of any large org's e-mail is not essential to anything. Why save all of it? make the users save what they need. Personally I like Intel's thought on the issue.
It's not like that can't archive processor designs and such, just why archive spam, inter-office bullsh!t, like love letters, plans for the pub and whatnot (ok, the loveletters may be interesting reading...)
-nB

Sheesh

[GregPK]

I have all my emails dating back to like 1998 on my computer and backed up to 3 different hard drives out of which 1 gets replaced every 2 years. I have it organised by person even. I've yet to have a drive fail on my email computer but I don't want it happening anytime soon. I do delete all spam on a semi monthly basis. Sure my file is large but its handy when looking for old programs or emails that need finding for information thats been lost in the corporate structure. It scares my boss a little in that I have every single email we've ever exchanged for the last 6-7 years. But then again I don't work for a fourtune 500 company.

Re:Data Retention part is True

[DrWho520]

It's not like that can't archive processor designs and such, just why archive spam, inter-office bullsh!t, like love letters, plans for the pub and whatnot (ok, the loveletters may be interesting reading...)
Because "processor designs and such" do not contain intentions, motivations and business decisions based upon anti-competitive practices. Amidst all that noise is possibly an e-mail gem sent to a distribution group describing some, shall we say, shady business decisions. This e-mail could have spurred multiple replies and conversations that would also be of interest to the court. Obliterating the whole moutainside eliminates any chance of finding those diamonds.

Re:Poor AMD

[mr_matticus]

Why does what AMD's attorneys file in court reflect on the company at all? I doubt these are all AMD staff litigators, and even if they are, they're just doing their jobs. It's not like AMD executives are running legal strategy meetings and writing the complaints.

If you have reason to believe that your opponents have (or may have, or potentially will have) lost (whether due to policy, tampering, or accident) data that may potentially be useful, you make a note of it as early as possible. There are specific windows for making claims in cases, especially when there are potential damages involved. As another poster stated, this is becoming a largely standard claim, much like a demurrer is generally the first response to a complaint, even if the demurrer has virtually no chance of success.

Re:Data Retention part is True

[malfunct]

Its actually proper and recommended e-mail retention policy. Anything that is not necessary for business or possibly pending litigation should be deleted after 60 or 90 days. Business necessary e-mail should only be retained until no longer necessary. Anything pending litigation should be turned over to the appropriate legal department for retention. At least this is the policy where I work and it is aided by a managed folder system in exchange. Unfortunately I have no idea how it is set up, I just know I have mail buckets and all mail goes into the short term bucket and its up to me to move the mail to one of the long term buckets so it won't get deleted.