Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

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Ex-AMD exec portrayed as greedy in trial
DISCRIMINATION SUIT OPENS
By Therese Poletti
Mercury News - Posted on Thu, Aug. 28, 2003

Attorneys for Advanced Micro Devices portrayed Walid Maghribi -- a former top executive who is suing the company for discrimination -- as a greedy and power-hungry individual who left AMD because he was not going to make tens of millions of dollars.

``This case is not about discrimination,'' said Lynne Hermle, an attorney for Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, in her opening argument in U.S. District Court in San Jose on Wednesday. ``It's about an executive who quit when he could not make tens of millions of dollars from a deal.''

Maghribi filed his lawsuit against AMD in April 2002, contending that he was forced to resign from the Sunnyvale chip maker because of intolerable working conditions. Maghribi, a Lebanese-American who was formerly president of AMD's memory-chip business, alleges that several weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, AMD's top two executives learned that he was a Muslim of Arab heritage and his career went into a tailspin shortly after.

But Hermle characterized Maghribi as focused on his own desires instead of AMD's corporate goals and said that he resigned from the company once he realized that his personal goals would not be achieved in a memory-chip joint venture he was brokering between AMD and Fujitsu.

``He was making millions annually; he wanted to be the CEO of a public company,'' Hermle said. ``His objective was not the objective of his employer, AMD.''

Maghribi's attorney, Allen Ruby of San Jose, laid out for the jury a timeline of the events that led up to Maghribi's resignation from AMD in December 2001, after 15 years with the company. Maghribi contends that Chairman Jerry Sanders and President Hector Ruiz changed their requirements for the AMD-Fujitsu joint venture after learning of his Arab heritage, making it impossible for him to continue at the company.

``Wally Maghribi had a wonderful career at AMD for 15 years,'' Ruby said in his opening. ``On Oct. 25, the head of the company asked him about his religious faith and background. He informed him he believed in Allah. . . . Forty-two days later, Mr. Maghribi's career at AMD was over.''

Maghribi contended that Sanders wanted AMD to get control of all the sales for the joint venture, something Fujitsu would never agree to.

Bertrand Cambou, who replaced Maghribi as the head of AMD's memory business, was called as a witness by Maghribi's attorney. Cambou, who is now the head of the joint venture by AMD and Fujitsu, said Fujitsu would never give up its sales in Japan, because it would be seen as a ``loss of face.''

In a taped deposition played in court Wednesday, Ruiz responded to Maghribi's allegation that he had told Maghribi and his wife a demeaning joke about Arabs at a company function in October 2001. Ruiz characterized the exchange as an anecdote he related to Maghribi's wife about his being mistaken for an Arab during an encounter at a gas station.


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Contact Therese Poletti at [e-mail] or at [phone].