Lawyers Say Embarrassing Voice Mail of Marvell GC May Have Been Edited

A voice mail message by lawyers on a speakerphone that didn’t get disconnected before some embarrassing discussions took place is being challenged by a company that wants to keep the recording out of an upcoming trade secrets trial.

Lawyers for Marvell Semiconductor say the tape should be tossed because it may have been edited, the Recorder reports. The company’s forensic expert says there are several instances where there is a complete loss of signal—a finding consistent with editing.

The lawyers caught on tape were Matthew Gloss, then the general counsel of Marvell Semiconductor, and one of its intellectual property lawyers, Eric Janofsky, the Recorder says. The lawyers and an engineer had phoned a lawyer for rival Jasmine Networks, and left a voice mail message when she didn't answer. Jasmine had been in negotiations to sell its technology and engineers to Marvell, and the details were protected by a nondisclosure pact, according to a 2001 account of the recording in Fortune.

Gloss thought he hung up, but it didn’t happen, the stories recount. The conversation among the three continued to be recorded. According to a California appeals court, the trio "openly discussed theft of Jasmine's trade secrets and the unlawful hiring of the engineering group as well as the potential consequence of jail for the conduct.” The court ruled that the attorney-client privilege for the conversation had been waived.

Marvell is represented by Latham & Watkins, which filed the new motion seeking to exclude the tape. “The lawyers don't detail whether or not there is an 18-minute, 20-second gap in the voice mail recording,” the Recorder story says. “Nor do they blame it on former President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who supposedly erased part of the infamous Watergate tape accidentally when she hit the record button.”