Link to article by Zusha Elinson and Dan Levine posted on Law.com, January 8, 2007:  Long-awaited ruling refers lawyers from Day Casebeer and Heller to Bar for ethics investigation of Qualcomm discovery dispute

Six attorneys in the Qualcomm Inc. discovery fiasco were sanctioned Monday for “monumental” discovery violations and referred to the State Bar of California for possible discipline.

Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder attorneys James Batchelder, Adam Bier, Kevin Leung, Christian Mammen and Lee Patch, and Heller Ehrman’s Stanley Young were sanctioned and harshly criticized by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Major in a 42-page order. The ruling follows a patent infringement trial Qualcomm had brought against Broadcom Corp….

News article by Bruce V. Bigelow posted on SignOnSanDiego.com, November 6, 2007:

At a time when a judge blasted San Diego’s Qualcomm for withholding more than 200,000 e-mails and other documents from trial, the company was helping tout the advanced capabilities of its e-mail archiving technology….

Article by Pamela A. MacLean posted on Law.com, October 29, 2007:  Papers in fraud suit detail the charges

In recently unsealed documents, a federal insider trading and shareholder fraud suit alleges that hundreds of e-mails and financial records, and even audio interviews with Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison, vanished or were improperly withheld from plaintiffs.

Lawyers for Oracle have strenuously denied the accusations, contained in thousands of pages of documents unsealed at the request of The National Law Journal….

Article by Mary Mack posted on Fios‘ The Electronic Discovery Counselor:

The declarations are filed. Jessie Seyfer over at Law.com[1] has a great summary. Internal Qualcomm folks are pointing the finger firmly at outside counsel, calling into question their witness interviews and requests for data collection. Outside counsel points back at Qualcomm, saying they never had direct access to the machines holding the data. It’s pretty clear something went awry with the witness interview and testimony preparation.…

News article by Bruce V. Bigelow posted on SignOnSanDiego.com, October 11, 2007:

A legal proceeding set for a downtown federal courtroom tomorrow has all the trappings of a case with the potential to ruin reputations and wreck careers.

A federal judge has ordered 14 California lawyers to explain why they should not be sanctioned for their “exceptional misconduct” on behalf of Qualcomm in a lawsuit that ended badly for the San Diego wireless giant….

News article by Gina Keating posted on Reuters, October 10, 2007:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc’s (QCOM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) failure to turn over hundreds of thousands of documents in a patent lawsuit against Broadcom Corp (BRCM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is likely to haunt the wireless chip maker in other litigation.

Broadcom has asked a federal magistrate to impose a fine and to force Qualcomm to notify other courts where they are litigating about the San Diego discovery failure and allow a third party to oversee its document production procedures.

A hearing on the sanctions motion is set for Friday….

Article by Beth Bar posted on Law.com, October 5, 2007:

Saying that a “lack of frankness in discovery can have unintended and damaging consequences,” a Manhattan federal magistrate judge has sanctioned plaintiffs for failure to preserve evidence in a consolidated securities fraud action against underwriters CIBC and Schroder.

Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV said that the plaintiffs, who are purchasers of preferred stock or senior notes of the now-bankrupt WRT Energy Corporation, had an obligation to preserve certain documents that were in the possession of WRT’s successor. He also said the purchasers should have alerted CIBC and Schroder before allowing the successor to destroy the documents in question….

Article by Jessie Seyfer posted on Law.com, October 4, 2007:

In the fallout from a high-stakes discovery meltdown involving Qualcomm Inc., Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder partner Lee Patch has emerged highly contaminated.

According to fresh declarations filed Wednesday, Patch signed off on a junior Day Casebeer partner’s decision to withhold 21 potentially damaging e-mails from Qualcomm’s litigation opponent, Broadcom Corp….

Article by John Tredennick posted on Law Technology Today, September 2007: Here’s a lesson in why it’s so important to produce every bit of electronic evidence. In a patent suit earlier this year between Qualcomm and Broadcom, attorneys failed to produce evidence until four months after the trail. The result: Qualcomm was ordered to pay all of Broadcom’s litigation fees – about $10 million.

In what had to qualify as one of their worst days at the office ever, attorneys for Qualcomm learned last month that failing to produce electronic evidence can really make life unpleasant—for their client as well as for themselves.

Specifically, in early August 2007, a Federal Judge for the Southern District of California held that several Qualcomm patents should be rendered invalid as to the world (not just the defendant) based in part on the failure to produce about 200,000 pages of emails and other juicy documents until 4 months after trial. Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp. (05-CV-1968-B)….

Article by Elena Malykhina posted on Information Week, September 28, 2007:  The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority this week said Morgan Stanley has to pay $12.5 million in fines to resolve charges that it mishandled e-mail.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority this week said Morgan Stanley has to pay $12.5 million in fines to resolve charges for mishandling e-mail dated before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Morgan Stanley on numerous occasions failed to provide e-mails requested by claimants in arbitration proceedings and regulators, FINRA said….