Well,... there is one more thing I would like to know. How will this change the litigation strategy of IFX, MU or Hynix?
To date they have fought RMBS' desire to delay and have had no reason to talk settlement. But these class suits give them much more leverage than they had even from the March 15th and May 9th Virginia rulings. The class suits up the ante for RMBS and its management. They involve a far greater risk of death than do the fraud and anti trust claims of the memory guys.
If RMBS management cares enough about the potential liability - depending on where the policy was issued, defense costs at least initially, may be covered by insurance - they should be willing to listen to reason now. If so, the three Fabs may be willing to consider a global settlement wherein one or more of them contribute something, say $30-50 million, to a settlement fund to benefit RMBS class members. RMBS comes up with say $100 million and the individual defendants kick in say $55 million. The settlement would provide that the Fabs drop their suits and get all RMBS' claimed SDRAM and DDR IP in exchange for their $50 mil payment.
The RMBS defendants get an end to all suits against them and dismiss all SDRAM/DDR suits/claims everywhere. More to the point they get to survive to make try to get DRDRAM off the floor. Class members and their lawyers get @$205 million.
Yes they will want more. However, they aren't crazy and know they will get no more than the defendants can pay. So the Defendants would have to provide financials sufficient to show that they can't pay more. ...And probably agree to sign over book, TV and film rights... I don't know how much cash the Defendants can put together, but I know that whatever the number is now, its going to continue to decrease as long as all these suits go on.
Again. What I don't know is the true value of RMBS IP on SDRAM/DDR. Is it worth anything to MU, et al., to forego these suits and pay RMBS class members instead of their lawyers? And if not them, then who else might be willing to put a material amount in the kitty to get this done. INTC perhaps? I don't think so. Not directly anyway. Although equity would suggest they should since this Fraud couldn't have flown without them. But then that's probably the very reason they would be loath to contribute.
Anyway, if there is going to be a RMBS three years from now, its going to take some sort of settlement like this to get it done. The real question is whether or not anyone besides the RMBS Longs wants it to survive.
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