The computer chip designer Rambus Inc. has long been haunted by its decision to shred hundreds of boxes of documents not long before it launched a litigation campaign against a big swath of the semiconductor industry. The latest blow came on Friday, when the judge most sympathetic to Rambus over the years ruled that the company willfully destroyed documents in anticipation of litigation and indicated that he would reduce a $397 million judgment that Rambus won against rival SK Hynix Inc. in 2009.
Reversing his own prior findings, U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte in San Jose ruled that Rambus spoliated documents in bad faith when it hosted companywide “shred days” in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Whyte stopped short of finding that Rambus deliberately shredded documents that could have hurt its litigation efforts. Choosing a relatively mild sanction, the judge ruled that he would recalculate Hynix’s royalty payments to Rambus under a 2009 judgment to assure that they are “reasonable and nondiscriminatory.” (You can read Whyte’s 66-page decision here.)
