Apple has informed a federal decide that Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and particular person attorneys ought to be sanctioned for failing to behave on “essentially the most consequential electronic mail you may get from a consumer” throughout a Wednesday listening to in its commerce secrets and techniques lawsuit in opposition to chip startup Rivos Inc., reviews Bloomberg Legislation.
Quinn Emanuel countered that Apple is exaggerating the occasions surrounding defendant Wen Shih-Chieh’s deletion of a folder containing confidential Apple paperwork and argued the tech large did not show that electronically saved data has been misplaced or can’t get replaced by alternate discovery. Justice of the Peace Decide Nathanael Cousins of the US District Courtroom of the Northern District of California stated he’ll problem a suggestion on the movement for sanctions at a later date.
One of many attorneys vulnerable to sanctions is former Quinn Emanuel associate Stephen A. Swedlow, who left the agency final yr after successful a seat as a decide in Illinois’ Prepare dinner County, reviews Bloomberg Legislation.
Apple’s lawsuit — filed in Might 2022 — says Mountain View, California-based Rivos has employed over 40 of its former staff up to now yr to work on competing “system-on-chip” (SoC) know-how, and that at the very least two former Apple engineers took gigabytes of confidential data with them to Rivos.
Apple’s lawsuit claims that, beginning in June 2021, Rivos started a coordinated marketing campaign to focus on Apple staff with entry to the corporate’s proprietary and commerce secret details about its SoC designs. Apple says it promptly despatched Rivos a letter informing Rivos of the confidentiality obligations of Apple’s former staff, however the start-up by no means responded. Rivos’ web site solely describes the corporate as a “startup in stealth-mode” and advertises for full-time and internship positions.
Shih-Chieh deleted a zipper file containing confidential Apple paperwork together with code and modeling of {hardware} parts a month after the lawsuit was filed, based on Apple’s August 30 movement. He stated he transferred a brand new copy of the zip file again to his Rivos-issued laptop computer and informed Quinn Emanuel counsel instantly after.
Quinn Emanuel knowingly submitted a false declaration from Shih-Chieh claiming he hadn’t accessed, used, transferred, or copied any Apple data since leaving, Mary Prendergast of Morrison & Foerster LLP stated, arguing on behalf of Apple. Apple needed to wait 10 months to find this data, she added, calling the delay “extraordinarily prejudicial.”
Based on Bloomberg Legislation, Ryan Landes of Quinn Emanuel targeted on the truth that Shih-Chieh restored the deleted file. Apple’s deal with the potential lack of metadata—which incorporates whether or not a file was opened or not—fails to acknowledge that “even when there was proof of utilization, even when the metadata that Apple says was misplaced, even when that existed within the first place and was misplaced, it might be changed from different sources.”
