AMD accuses former employees of sharing secrets with Nvidia

Four former employees of AMD have had a court complaint filed against them following accusations that they slipped secret documents to their new employer Nvidia.

ArsTechnica reports that AMD is alleging a violation of a no-solicitation of employees” promise with its rival, claiming that RVP of strategy development Robert Feldstein, Manoo Desai and Nicolas Kociuk collectively downloaded over 100,000 files onto an external hard drive six months before departing the firm.

The trio, and fellow employee Richard Hagen, then left for Nvidia and have been subsequently accused of poaching further AMD staff.

AMD claims to have forensically analysed computers formerly used by the accused and found evidence that Desai and Kociuk conspired with each other to misappropriate AMD’s confidential, proprietary, and/or trade secret information; and/or to intentionally access AMD’s protected computers, without authorization and/or in a way that exceeded their authorised access”.

The company is seeking the recovery of files, while courts have already granted it a restraining order against the four involved.

Feldstein played a key part in the deals that led to the use of AMD tech in the new, unannounced consoles from Microsoft and Sony as well as the Wii U.