March 6, 2007 – Intel Corp. says that “inadvertent mistakes” resulted in some employees not retaining key email correspondences as required in its antitrust lawsuit filed by rival AMD, according to media reports.

AMD filed suit in 2005, claiming Intel had used anticompetitive practices to secure and maintain its top position in the x86 processor market, including pressuring several dozen companies in the PC manufacturing and sales chain into Intel-exclusive deals in return for cash payments, discriminatory pricing, or marketing subsidies that are based on agreement not to use any AMD products, as well as enforcing quotas at retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City.

As part of the “discovery phase” of the case (the trial is expected to begin in April), Intel says it implemented measures to preserve relevant documents, but now says that some internal emails from hundreds of employees may not have been retained, either because employees were improperly notified or assumed the company was automatically saving correspondences. The company indicated it may be able to salvage some from archives and backups, but did not say how many may have been lost.

Intel says it has delivered about 17 million pages of documents to AMD, according to a spokesperson.

AMD, however, fired back, saying that the missteps involve “executives at the highest level,” and called for the court to investigate.