this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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A summer intern once saved Valve from a near-fatal lawsuit after a publisher 'decided to go World War 3' on it, and it all hinged on one email (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 99 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In a bit of malicious compliance, Vivendi turned over millions of pages of Korean language documents from its local subsidiary during the discovery phase of Valve's cybercafe lawsuit, with anything potentially useful to Valve buried under both the volume of material and a language barrier. Quackenbush turned to a summer intern identified only as "Andrew" in the documentary. A native Korean speaker who also majored in Korean language studies in college, Andrew found the needle in the haystack: An email where one Korean Vivendi executive discussed the destruction of documents related to the Valve case to their superior, with the implication that the more junior executive was ordered to do so. With this evidence in hand, Valve was able to turn the tables on Vivendi, securing a highly favorable settlement and full ownership of its IP moving forward.

It's not clear to me how the email described was helpful though?

[–] [email protected] 126 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Destroying evidence is a big no-no in a legal case, and would allow the judge to draw a negative inference, so I'm guessing that gave Valve the leverage to settle the case.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Destroying evidence is a big no-no in a legal case, and would allow the judge to draw a negative inference, so I'm guessing that gave Valve the leverage to settle the case.

Ah, that would make sense. So Valve probably won more on procedural grounds then?

"Needle in a haystack" made me assume it was something like actual contractual language forbidding Vivendi from doing what it was trying to do.

[–] thedirtyknapkin 55 points 4 days ago

i mean, destroying evidence related to the case is a little more than a "procedural violation". that's clear cut obstruction and it's a felony crime.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I mean, they settled as soon as they found this, as they knew how it would've played out in a trial. If you can show a judge that evidence was deleted, the judge/jury would need to assume that the missing evidence would show the guilt of that party.

The needle in the haystack part was that Vivendi were trying to bury Valve in evidence, as they assumed that they wouldn't be able to afford to hire a bunch of Korean paralegals to go through everything. A wealthy opponent will do that in order to put you in the position where you have to choose between settling or paying a fortune to go through the evidence that may or may not contain anything useful.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago

If I'm reading this correctly, the haystack is the malicious compliance of providing all documents printed and in Korean. The needle is the document that snuck between other documents so that Valve attorneys wouldn't find it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago

Sort of procedural, yes - if you are alleging something and the evidence that would support that was destroyed by the other party, the court can make an adverse inference which basically means the court assumes the destroyed evidence would have proved your point.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago

(I am not a lawyer)

To me this is what allowed them to not comb through the millions of documents. Since you have a piece of evidence they gave you admitting to destroying additional evidence, they basically can get not goodwill at all in front of a judge, so it doesn't matter if they say "your honor everything was turned over during discovery and we're all clear", the instant your lawyers contact their lawyers, it's settling time.

[–] fluxion 75 points 4 days ago

Vivendi were complete pricks. They knew they were breaking the law the entire time and still tried to tank Valve, their own asset, instead of just stopping it.

That intern was the hero we needed 🫡

[–] DandomRude 34 points 4 days ago (2 children)

A nice story. I just find it a bit odd that the article says nothing about what became of "Andrew", the summer intern, whether Valve paid him an appropriate bonus or offered him a job later on.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Still just a Summer intern, all these years later.

[–] DandomRude 15 points 4 days ago

Perhaps they nicknamed him "the giant" for his trouble tho

[–] ripcord 10 points 4 days ago

It seems like an article written purely about info in a documentary, with no original investigation (although I could easily see that they tried at least some, but no one answered)

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Why doesn't it surprise me that they end up paving the way for Activision Blizzard.. "On 2 December 2007, Vivendi announced that it would be merging its game publishing unit with Activision in a $18.8 billion deal. This will allow the merged company, Activision Blizzard, to rival Electronic Arts, the world's biggest video game publisher." Cited from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7123582.stm https://www.reuters.com/article/us-activision-vivendi-idUSN0236714920071202/

[–] SassyRamen 9 points 4 days ago

Proud of mah boy Andrew!

[–] sir_pronoun 7 points 4 days ago

I think we should petition Valve to award that intern Andrew something big, like a million bucks or so, if that hasn't happened yet! They might just be cool enough to go with it!

[–] sir_pronoun 1 points 4 days ago

Let's gooo Andrew!!