AMD: $30 Million Settlement Ends Llano Lawsuit

[Guest]

According to a joint notice of settlement filed in California federal court, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has agreed to shell out close to $30 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed by shareholders in 2014.


AMD: $30 Million Settlement Ends Llano Lawsuit : Read more

 

[hotsacoman]

I remember the 30's...Nothing but Llano's and the Great Depression.

 

[Guest]

Lawyers going to lawyer. Who sees the money? The lawyers do.

 

[redgarl]

AMD PR is sometime questionable at best, however when they deliver, they deliver... and when they don't... they really don't.

 

[dudmont]

As someone who invests, I never invest cause of what the company says in pr statements(unless it confirms what the fundementals are saying), only when there's tangible evidence of a good investment(growing earnings, cheap stock price, strengthening market position etc. etc.). I try to avoid investing in companies where I can't explain what they do, or how they do it. There's a reason someone once said, "buyer beware". That can go for a companies products or a companies stock.

 

[10tacle]

^^Smart potential investors do a broad range of analysis not just on the company itself and management, but on the markets said company is involved with. And that includes what their competitors are doing.

In any event, you can hear crickets chirping in here from the silence of the Intel and Nvidia haters always claiming they have shady business practices.

 

[RomeoReject]

Yeah, I'm not condoning what AMD did here, but seriously: If you don't actually research what you're investing in, it's reeaaally hard to empathize with you.

 

[MASOUTH]

If you hear crickets then it is probably because of the affected group sizes.

Exaggerating to your investors vs shady practices towards other companies and consumers

I'm pretty sure that the latter vastly outnumbers the former and is going to generate more noise.

That said, I am not pro or anti Intel, nVidia, or AMD and feel they should all be praised/ burned when they deserve it.

 

[MASOUTH]

as far as people referring to the investors...

I'm pretty sure that the problem stemmed not from people that invested in AMD due to an over-hyped prospectus (that's your job to research as has been pointed out) as much as AMD actively lying in their annual reports to their already invested stockholders (WTF!?).

 

[10tacle]

Well the good news is that Intel and Nvidia usually get popped with unfair or questionable trade practice settlements and have to shell out. The most recent big ones for Intel were being slapped with a $1.5 billion fine in 2014 by the EU, and before that in 2009 with a $1.3 billion payment to AMD after an FTC investigation in the US.

Nvidia's most recent was the $5 million settlement of the GTX 970 fiasco (which I got $60 for my two 970s no longer in my possession). <-- And keep in mind there was no evidence of any intent to mislead the consumer. No documentation, no witnesses, no emails, no undercover video. Nothing. Nvidia just owned up to it as a technicality error, paid out, and moved on as a lesson learned.

Then there are Apple's business practices and the billion dollar lost lawsuits on patent infringement, yet people still flock to their products as well.

 

[wiyosaya]

It would not at all surprise me if this happened during Rory Read's tenure - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Read

 

[JamesSneed]

Well the good news is that Intel and Nvidia usually get popped with unfair or questionable trade practice settlements and have to shell out. The most recent big ones for Intel were being slapped with a $1.5 billion fine in 2014 by the EU, and before that in 2009 with a $1.3 billion payment to AMD after an FTC investigation in the US.

Nvidia's most recent was the $5 million settlement of the GTX 970 fiasco (which I got $60 for my two 970s no longer in my possession). <-- And keep in mind there was no evidence of any intent to mislead the consumer. No documentation, no witnesses, no emails, no undercover video. Nothing. Nvidia just owned up to it as a technicality error, paid out, and moved on as a lesson learned.

Then there are Apple's business practices and the billion dollar lost lawsuits on patent infringement, yet people still flock to their products as well.

The GTX 970 was easily seen as false or misleading marketing so it's not like they were going to win if it went to court. The bean counters did some crunching and the $60 they gave you was probably cheaper than a losing lawsuit.

 

[10tacle]

The GTX 970 was easily seen as false or misleading marketing so it's not like they were going to win if it went to court. The bean counters did some crunching and the $60 they gave you was probably cheaper than a losing lawsuit.

Seen as such by many, but unproven as such legally. Only Nvidia knows the truth. It could have been a massive disconnect between engineering and marketing, or an intentional holding back of info to marketing by engineering's management and the top brass. I doubt anyone in marketing even knew the difference between what 56 vs. 64 ROPs meant. We'll never know the truth, but either way Nvidia was going to eat it.

 

[alextheblue]

keep in mind there was no evidence of any intent to mislead the consumer.

Seen as such by many, but unproven as such legally. Only Nvidia knows the truth

You might be shocked to learn that they don't necessarily need to prove intent to beat them in court. Depends on what the charges are. Nvidia settled for a reason. Ditto for AMD in the Llano case.

 

[10tacle]

You might be shocked to learn that they don't necessarily need to prove intent to beat them in court. Depends on what the charges are. Nvidia settled for a reason. Ditto for AMD in the Llano case.

Well of course. Nvidia figured it would be cheaper to pay the settlement fine than go through a long drawn out and very expensive legal process for a year or more. This is relatively common. Again, there was not one shred of evidence brought forward of any intentional misleading/false information. The only thing proven was that the specs of the card were wrong as listed by Nvidia. The full lawsuit documentation is out there.

 

[JamesSneed]

The GTX 970 was easily seen as false or misleading marketing so it's not like they were going to win if it went to court. The bean counters did some crunching and the $60 they gave you was probably cheaper than a losing lawsuit.

Seen as such by many, but unproven as such legally. Only Nvidia knows the truth. It could have been a massive disconnect between engineering and marketing, or an intentional holding back of info to marketing by engineering's management and the top brass. I doubt anyone in marketing even knew the difference between what 56 vs. 64 ROPs meant. We'll never know the truth, but either way Nvidia was going to eat it.

No we know the truth hence your $60 check. No way if Nivida thought they were in the right or would win a suite they would have done that. Now we may now know why marketing was off from reality but none the less the rebate they gave is proof the felt they were in the wrong on some level.

 

[10tacle]

No we know the truth hence your $60 check. No way if Nivida thought they were in the right or would win a suite they would have done that. Now we may now know why marketing was off from reality but none the less the rebate they gave is proof the felt they were in the wrong on some level.

Well that's like men who settle out of court for sexual harrassment claims who say they did no such thing to the woman accuser, and there was no evidence of such and it was just a he-said vs. she-said for evidence. It's cheaper to settle out of court than fight it in court even if he's innocent.

All I'm saying is that there are only two possibilities that happened here: Nvidia intentionally misled the consumer, or it was a severe breakdown in communication between departments like engineering and marketing. It was a no-win situation for Nvidia as they did market that card with stats that did not match the card. That cannot be challenged.

What could have been challenged or argued was a root cause of the error *if* it was an unintentional internal breakdown. It would not have prevented the wrist slap (payout), but it may have reduced the sentence payout. Like say $10 vs. $30.

Point being, again: it would have cost a lot more to prove it was an error and not intent for consumer confidence. They chose to eat it and move on. Apparently they chose wisely because the 970 was the single most used GPU for some time on Steam.

 

[JamesSneed]

No we know the truth hence your $60 check. No way if Nivida thought they were in the right or would win a suite they would have done that. Now we may now know why marketing was off from reality but none the less the rebate they gave is proof the felt they were in the wrong on some level.

Well that's like men who settle out of court for sexual harrassment claims who say they did no such thing to the woman accuser, and there was no evidence of such and it was just a he-said vs. she-said for evidence. It's cheaper to settle out of court than fight it in court even if he's innocent.

All I'm saying is that there are only two possibilities that happened here: Nvidia intentionally misled the consumer, or it was a severe breakdown in communication between departments like engineering and marketing. It was a no-win situation for Nvidia as they did market that card with stats that did not match the card. That cannot be challenged.

What could have been challenged or argued was a root cause of the error *if* it was an unintentional internal breakdown. It would not have prevented the wrist slap (payout), but it may have reduced the sentence payout. Like say $10 vs. $30.

Point being, again: it would have cost a lot more to prove it was an error and not intent for consumer confidence. They chose to eat it and move on. Apparently they chose wisely because the 970 was the single most used GPU for some time on Steam.

"Nvidia intentionally misled the consumer, or it was a severe breakdown in communication between departments like engineering and marketing."

We agree and that was the point I was making in that one case, that would have had them loose either way intentional or not it was false advertising, hence they just caved. I agree it was a wise choice likely led to more 970 sales which again was my point the bean counters did the math and found this move advantageous to their bottom line(likely from a lawsuit perspective and goodwill to there customers perspective ie more sales).