The Intel Class Action lawsuit involves a number of complaints about Intel. Many of the suits cite various false claims regarding Intel’s financial situation and stock price. Some of the suits also reference statements regarding the negative financial and management practices within Intel that allegedly caused the company significant losses over the years. All of these complaints are based on defamatory statements that were issued by Intel regarding their financial situation, stock price, and direction (or lack of direction) of the company.
The Intel class action lawsuits further allege that defendants deliberately misrepresented Intel’s business and economic condition by issuing numerous false and misleading statements about Intel’s future performance and growth, in particular, by failing to appropriately disclose material adverse information about Intel’s net profits and losses throughout the Class Period. According to Intel’s defense, these statements were not intended to be misleading, but were only meant to be accurate in a limited way. Additionally, Intel maintains that these complaints are based on unreasonable breach of contract and that any such allegations are both legally and financially baseless.
One of the additional class action lawsuits that focus on Intel focuses on statements that a former Intel engineer, Robert Freeling, made in an article on blogs and forums regarding Intel’s manufacturing processes. According to the Intel Class Action lawsuit, Freeling made statements in these articles that were supportive of an Intel processor design that would have an adverse effect on competitors. Specifically, the Intel processor design would result in “intellectual property destruction,” or “open source attack,” according to the article and the statements. Further, Freeling’s statements were characterized as being inflammatory and “inflammatory” in nature.
Plaintiffs further assert that the statements do not accurately state or otherwise accurately represent the facts. Among other things, they say that the phrase “intellectual property destruction” is an exaggeration, because the damage that they say is not the loss of profits but rather the disruption of their business. The class action lawsuit also says that Intel’s proposed design would result in increased demand for lower quality microprocessors by other companies, and this disruption could cause the price of Intel’s microprocessor chips to drop. In addition, plaintiffs contend that their Intel Class Action lawsuit should not be thrown out due to the fact that their complaint does not allege any injury that would make the statute of limitations run out. This contention is currently being considered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
In its reply, Intel argues that the complaint fails to allege any harm or injury that would make the statute of limitations run out. Furthermore, Intel further contends that it has never engaged in any conduct of this nature and is therefore not a danger to anyone. Finally, Intel claims that the plaintiffs’ complaint misrepresents the facts about their relationship with Freeling. The defense acknowledges that it did supply Freeling with materials that were used in designing Intel processors, but asserts that this was only after Intel requested such materials from Freeling on their own volition.
One of the major causes for the failure of the Intel Class Action lawsuit is the way that Intel handled the design of their processors. While the company made every effort to comply with all of the Fair and Accurate Computing Act regulations, including those that apply to the design of Intel processors, they encountered a series of roadblocks along the way. One of these roadblocks was a known Intel security flaw known as the “Atomizer”. While the law didn’t allow the unaltered execution of programs within Intel computers, it did prevent regular access to the CPU by other users. Without regular access to the CPU, the company could not ensure security on the computer system, which led to the company having to issue a recall on all of their Intel processors and instructing their customers not to replace their computers with newer ones that came with the recalled security flaw. On top of that, many customers were unable or unwilling to pay the steep costs that came with recovering from the recall.
