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Qualcomm guilty of exceptional misconduct
Attorneys called to judge's chamber to explain themselves
A San Diego judge has found Qualcomm guilty of "a monumental discovery violation" in its failure to produce relevant documents for its dispute with Broadcom, and has reported six lawyers for disciplinary action.
The documents cover Qualcomm's involvement in the Joint Video Team (JVT), and stems from the ruling last August that the company had acted improperly. Such disclosures are required to be made in "good faith", but as the presiding magistrate put it: "Producing 1.2 million pages of marginally relevant documents while hiding 46,000 critically important ones does not constitute good faith".
US Magistrate Barbara Major also found it "inconceivable that Qualcomm was unaware of its involvement in the JVT and of the existence of these documents". She went further, saying that Qualcomm could not have kept the documents from the court "...without some type of assistance or deliberate ignorance from its retained attorneys".
Eleven of those attorneys must present themselves to Major's chambers on the January 29, to explain how they will ensure that this doesn't happen again.
Qualcomm reiterated its previous apology, but says it's still considering its options. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
