E-Mail At Heart Of Cuomo’s Complaint Against Intel – And Here Are Some Examples!

You know how people often say “be careful what you write in e-mail”? Well, here are some great examples from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s antitrust complaint, filed today, against Intel. Cuomo alleges that the following e-mail demonstrate Intel’s illegal activities (the descriptions are his):

·                     Internal e-mail from HP executive in June 2004 after HP defied Intel and launched an Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”) product: “Intel has told us that HP’s announcement on Opteron [AMD’s server chip] has cost them several $B [Billions] and they plan to ‘punish’ HP for doing this.”
·                     Internal e-mail from IBM executive in January 2005: “I understand the point about the accounts wanting a full AMD portfolio. The question is, can we afford to accept the wrath of Intel…?”
·                     Internal e-mail from HP executive in September 2004 regarding the consequences of marketing products from an Intel competitor: “If you do and we get caught (and we will) the Intel moneys (each month is gone (they would terminate the deal). The risk is too high. Without the money we do not make it financially.”
·                     Internal Dell document from February 2003 in which it was assumed that “aggressive” purchases by Dell from Intel’s competitors could result in: “[r]etaliatory [rebate] reductions [by Intel that] could be severe and prolonged with impact to all LOBs [lines of business].”
·                     Internal Dell e-mail in February 2004 regarding the possibility of Dell ending its exclusive relationship with Intel: “PSO/CRB [Intel CEO Paul Ottelini and Intel Chairman Craig Barrett] are prepared for jihad if Dell joins the AMD exodus. We [will] get ZERO [rebates] for at least one quarter while Intel ‘investigates the details’ - there’s no legal/moral/threatening means for us to apply and avoid this.”
·                     Internal e-mail from an Intel negotiator in September 2006 attempting to make sure that the company’s internal e-mails did not reveal Intel’s antitrust violations: “Could you just take the mss [market share] references off and just leave everything at volume targets. Our counsel is very picky on that stuff and I don’t want to infer we had conversations about anything other than volume targets or relative volume targets . . . thx.”
·                     Internal e-mail from Intel executive in April 2006: “Let’s talk more on the phone as it’s so difficult for me to write or explain without considering anti-trust issue.”
·                     Internal e-mail from Dell CEO Michael Dell to Intel CEO Paul Ottelini in November 2005: “We have lost the performance leadership and it’s seriously impacting our business in several areas.” Otellini replied: “There is nothing new here. Our product roadmap is what it is. It is improving rapidly daily. It will deliver increasingly leadership products… Additionally, we are transferring over $1B [Billion] per year to Dell for meet comp efforts. This was judged by your team to be more than sufficient to compensate for the competitive issues.”