Qimonda Update
TO ALL QIMONDA EMPLOYEES
The employee litigation continues. At this point, the earliest estimate for resolution of our claims is fall 2010. Were that to happen, payment of the claims would still be unlikely until the first half of 2011. Our recent activities are summarized below.
Throughout the winter and spring, we engaged in discovery, reviewed documents and attempted settlement at a face-to-face meeting in late May. We met with lawyers for Qimonda, however, these initial efforts to settle were unsuccessful. Since then, we have explored taking depositions of Qimonda executives and requested additional documentation from Qimonda.
This past week, we traveled to Dallas, Texas for a meeting of the Creditors’ Committee. The purpose of the meeting was to primarily discuss the litigation between the bankrupt U.S. entities we are suing, Qimonda N.A. and Qimonda Richmond (“QNA” and “QR”) and the German entity, Qimonda AG (“QAG“). Essentially, QAG has claims for nearly $1 billion dollars against QNA and QR, and, similarly, QNA and QR have claims for nearly $1 billion dollars (combined) against QAG. A three-day mediation is scheduled in London, England for July 6-9 to see if the parties can resolve any or all of the claims. This does not include the litigation over who owns the patents which QAG estimates to be worth $100-$500 million dollars. QAG claims to own all the patents and QNA believes it owns approximately 10% of the patents. However, the patent litigation is in its infancy and unlikely to be resolved entirely during the mediation in London. All the other contractual claims could be resolved during the mediation. If that occurs, it is likely that we will see progress in the employee litigation.
This week we also received some good news from the Delaware Federal Court. The court denied Infineon’s Motion to Dismiss our Complaint. As you may recall, we filed a complaint against QAG and Infineon in Delaware Federal Court (not the bankruptcy court) claiming that they were both joint employers/single employers with QNA/QR and therefore should be liable for the employee claims as well. Proving joint employer/single employer is not easy, but the Judge’s opinion indicates that we have at least alleged enough facts to warrant further litigation. To see a copy of the Judge’s opinion go to our website (www.klehr.com) and look under the “Press” section. The Judge ordered that a status call be held on October 5, 2010 to determine how the litigation against Infineon will proceed.
We will keep you apprised of future developments.
Charles A. Ercole, Esquire
cercole@klehr.com
Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP
1835 Market Street, Suite 1400
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Jack A. Raisner, Esquire
René S. Roupinian, Esquire
Outten & Golden LLP
Advocates for Workplace Fairness
3 Park Avenue, 29th Floor
New York, NY 10016
JAR@outtengolden.com
RSR@outtengolden.com