Rambus (RMBS)

[Skeptic]

More comments from B. Riley's Mike Crawford...


"Regarding RMBS shares, we believe mainstream media still has not picked up on the “eliminate competition” angle--concentrating instead on the perceived harm to the PC OEMs. (In this regard, we would argue that the same OEMs that were hurt by rising DDR prices in 2002 were also helped by the below cost DDR dumped into the market to kill RDRAM in 2001.) IFX, to its credit, is doing its best to befuddle investors by stating that there is no link between the price fixing cartel felony and the infringement litigation with RMBS. In contrast, a close read of IFX North American President Robert LeFort’s statements reveals that he is not making the same claim with respect to RMBS’ civil price fixing complaint. He can’t. In fact, we believe IFX is in a particular predicament regarding it potential civil antitrust liability to RMBS, we believe, due to its:

1) New criminal plea admitting a “conspiracy in the United States and elsewhere to suppress and eliminate competition by fixing the prices of Dynamic Random Access Memory.” (emphasis ours)

2) The presence of IFX’s notorious “Deadly Menace” overhead slides from 1992 that were recovered from the hard disk of IFX JEDEC rep Willie Meyer’s personal computer (foiling an apparent attempt to delete the files), albeit discovered too late to be used in the first infringement trial with RMBS.

3) New third party evidence discovered through FTC deposition (and now likely the DoJ!), including emails from and to IFX pertaining to RMBS that should have been provided (but was not) in infringement trial discovery, indicating continuing spoliation attempts."