6 ms·

The most shocking thing to me about that isn't the malicious compliance, but that even after a court injunction, and fully knowing that there could be subsequen

by avar 1y ago

The most shocking thing to me about that isn't the malicious compliance, but that even after a court injunction, and fully knowing that there could be subsequent discovery, they have people putting something like that in writing. Seriously, this is one of the top 10 largest companies in the world, and they're playing chicken with the court in order to preserve their ongoing revenue. These weren't random employees, but people part of "Project Michigan", Apple's "activities relating to Injunction compliance". How doesn't every single person that's a part of that project have an Apple lawyer hovering over them every time they get near any sort of device that can put anything on the record?

mytailorisrich 1y ago
People put everything in writing and in videos nowadays and don't even think about it. Often it's "not so smart" criminals but we see again and again that even people are the highest levels do the same...
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
  It is not always a question of smart of vs not smart. At times, you will see people say something in an email or chat for no other reason than 'now it is part of the record'.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    CYA, always be building a paper trail in systems of record. "Will this be committed to something with a retention schedule and that is subject to a potential legal hold?" hits return
cwmma 1y ago
they did try to hide some of this stuff, by abusing attorney client privilege, which is one of the reasons the judge is SO pissed at them.
- registeredcorn 1y ago
  >they did try to hide some of this stuff, by abusing attorney client privilege I don't know a thing about the legal system: if someone gets caught doing that sort of thing, does that incur additional punishments? I mean, if you do something illegal, and when the police arrest you they prove that you were trying to hide it from them, that's another charge. How does that work if the court catches you doing it?
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    > THE COURT FURTHER FINDS that Apple’s abuse of attorney-client privilege designations to delay proceedings and obscure its decision-making process warrants sanction to deter future misconduct. Apple is SANCTIONED in the amount of the full cost of the special masters’ review and Epic’s attorneys’ fees on this issue alone through approximately May 15, 2025, the anticipated date of completion. So pretty mild thus far. As far as I remember from reading other court decisions, court-imposed sanctions against individual lawyers are also a thing. As far as the clients are considered, given production of documents is mandated by a court order, presumably this counts as defying a court order and so any punishments would fall under criminal contempt? (Not a lawyer, in case this wasn’t clear from the above already.)
    - avar 1y ago
      That's not even "mild". From Apple's perspective that sounds great. They were trying to delay the proceedings, were successful in doing so, and as a result need to pay for the attorneys' fees incurred. Fees that probably add up to mere seconds of worldwide revenue resulting from these monopolistic practices. "Don't threaten me with a good time" comes to mind.
graemep 1y ago
> Seriously, this is one of the top 10 largest companies in the world, and they're playing chicken with the court in order to preserve their ongoing revenue. Maybe that is a result of the attitudes that made them one of the largest companies in the world?
- jillyboel 1y ago
  Other way around. Too big to fail and individual employees are too isolated from any consequences so they have no reason to give a shit.
  - graemep 1y ago
    Or both. Vicious circle.
DannyBee 1y ago
"The most shocking thing to me about that isn't the malicious compliance, but that even after a court injunction, and fully knowing that there could be subsequent discovery, they have people putting something like that in writing." Keep in mind that once you lose, the process is no longer adversarial. In ~all cases you will be required to provide evidence and status updates and such on implementation of an injunction, among other things. So you do practically have to keep records of what you are doing to comply. These are the kinds of records you would normally see as a result. The only shocking thing is that they didn't lie :) They often do try to hide bad stuff through privilege anyway - I believe they tried here and lost but i will go back and look - but that doesn't often work.
- egonschiele 1y ago
  > you do practically have to keep records of what you are doing to comply I would argue that the text the parent comment has pulled out is not part of the record keeping you need to do to comply. Lawyers will tell you to have certain conversations in person, and it is surprising that some of these conversations happened in text instead of in person.
  - DannyBee 1y ago
    i'm aware of what lawyers tell you sometimes, since i am in fact, a lawyer in addition to being an engineer, but you have to think about the context as well. You aren't talking about trying to avoid another side finding it in mountains of discovery, you are talking about trying to avoid a judge who easily has the power to force your engineers to testify under oath about what they are doing, finding out about what you are doing. This is a very bad plan :) On top of that I'll also offer to you that the days of trying to avoid generating evidence as a mechanism for avoiding bad things happening are fast dying after google got sanctioned for having off the record conversations for exactly this reason. It's bad advice - the better advice i used to give my clients is - if you are not doing anything wrong, don't act like you are doing anything wrong. If you are doing something wrong, stop.
    - avar 1y ago
jjav 1y ago
The arrogance of power is very difficult (perhaps nearly impossibly difficult) for humans to overcome. Apple is worth more than many countries, so employees are going to feel immune to everything. And for the most part, that is true. Big money buys both laws and courts. Only rarely does this assumption fail.
ChrisRR 1y ago
Because otherwise it means getting up from your desk and talking to people. Risk your malicious compliance being discovered or have to go for a walk?

by avar 1y ago

mytailorisrich 1y ago

People put everything in writing and in videos nowadays and don't even think about it. Often it's "not so smart" criminals but we see again and again that even people are the highest levels do the same...

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
It is not always a question of smart of vs not smart. At times, you will see people say something in an email or chat for no other reason than 'now it is part of the record'.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  CYA, always be building a paper trail in systems of record. "Will this be committed to something with a retention schedule and that is subject to a potential legal hold?" hits return

cwmma 1y ago

they did try to hide some of this stuff, by abusing attorney client privilege, which is one of the reasons the judge is SO pissed at them.

registeredcorn 1y ago
>they did try to hide some of this stuff, by abusing attorney client privilege I don't know a thing about the legal system: if someone gets caught doing that sort of thing, does that incur additional punishments? I mean, if you do something illegal, and when the police arrest you they prove that you were trying to hide it from them, that's another charge. How does that work if the court catches you doing it?
- mananaysiempre 1y ago
  > THE COURT FURTHER FINDS that Apple’s abuse of attorney-client privilege designations to delay proceedings and obscure its decision-making process warrants sanction to deter future misconduct. Apple is SANCTIONED in the amount of the full cost of the special masters’ review and Epic’s attorneys’ fees on this issue alone through approximately May 15, 2025, the anticipated date of completion. So pretty mild thus far. As far as I remember from reading other court decisions, court-imposed sanctions against individual lawyers are also a thing. As far as the clients are considered, given production of documents is mandated by a court order, presumably this counts as defying a court order and so any punishments would fall under criminal contempt? (Not a lawyer, in case this wasn’t clear from the above already.)
  - avar 1y ago
    That's not even "mild". From Apple's perspective that sounds great. They were trying to delay the proceedings, were successful in doing so, and as a result need to pay for the attorneys' fees incurred. Fees that probably add up to mere seconds of worldwide revenue resulting from these monopolistic practices. "Don't threaten me with a good time" comes to mind.

graemep 1y ago

> Seriously, this is one of the top 10 largest companies in the world, and they're playing chicken with the court in order to preserve their ongoing revenue. Maybe that is a result of the attitudes that made them one of the largest companies in the world?

jillyboel 1y ago
Other way around. Too big to fail and individual employees are too isolated from any consequences so they have no reason to give a shit.
- graemep 1y ago
  Or both. Vicious circle.

DannyBee 1y ago

"The most shocking thing to me about that isn't the malicious compliance, but that even after a court injunction, and fully knowing that there could be subsequent discovery, they have people putting something like that in writing." Keep in mind that once you lose, the process is no longer adversarial. In ~all cases you will be required to provide evidence and status updates and such on implementation of an injunction, among other things. So you do practically have to keep records of what you are doing to comply. These are the kinds of records you would normally see as a result. The only shocking thing is that they didn't lie :) They often do try to hide bad stuff through privilege anyway - I believe they tried here and lost but i will go back and look - but that doesn't often work.

egonschiele 1y ago
> you do practically have to keep records of what you are doing to comply I would argue that the text the parent comment has pulled out is not part of the record keeping you need to do to comply. Lawyers will tell you to have certain conversations in person, and it is surprising that some of these conversations happened in text instead of in person.
- DannyBee 1y ago
  i'm aware of what lawyers tell you sometimes, since i am in fact, a lawyer in addition to being an engineer, but you have to think about the context as well. You aren't talking about trying to avoid another side finding it in mountains of discovery, you are talking about trying to avoid a judge who easily has the power to force your engineers to testify under oath about what they are doing, finding out about what you are doing. This is a very bad plan :) On top of that I'll also offer to you that the days of trying to avoid generating evidence as a mechanism for avoiding bad things happening are fast dying after google got sanctioned for having off the record conversations for exactly this reason. It's bad advice - the better advice i used to give my clients is - if you are not doing anything wrong, don't act like you are doing anything wrong. If you are doing something wrong, stop.
  - avar 1y ago

jjav 1y ago

The arrogance of power is very difficult (perhaps nearly impossibly difficult) for humans to overcome. Apple is worth more than many countries, so employees are going to feel immune to everything. And for the most part, that is true. Big money buys both laws and courts. Only rarely does this assumption fail.

ChrisRR 1y ago

Because otherwise it means getting up from your desk and talking to people. Risk your malicious compliance being discovered or have to go for a walk?