Western Digital Cleared in $135-Million Lawsuit

A Santa Ana jury cleared Irvine computer disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. of any wrongdoing in a $135-million suit brought against it by British computer maker Amstrad Plc, Western Digital said Wednesday.

Amstrad, a consumer electronics company founded by flamboyant British entrepreneur Alan Sugar, filed the suit in 1991 claiming that Western Digital had sold it defective drives.

The suit first went to trial in October, but ended in a mistrial in January. In the second trial, which began in March in Orange County Superior Court, Amstrad sought $135 million in damages.

“We have always maintained that the hard drives [that] Amstrad purchased from Western Digital met their specifications, and that any performance problems Amstrad may have experienced were the result of the design and workmanship of its computers,” Western Digital Vice President Michael Cornelius said in a statement.

Amstrad also had sued Seagate Technology Inc., which settled a case filed in a British court in 1997 by agreeing to pay $128.1 million.

Western Digital had said the cases differed because Seagate had acknowledged a design flaw but had disputed the significance, while Amstrad had not identified a defect in the drives supplied by Western Digital.

Sugar, chairman of British Premier League soccer club Tottenham Hotspur, built Amstrad in the 1980s.

In 1997, Amstrad was reorganized into Viglen Technology, but reemerged after spinning off its remaining computer operations as Viglen. Amstrad briefly renamed itself Betacom before reviving its original name.

In its fiscal year ending June 1998, Amstrad lost $1.7 million on sales of $87.8 million. Western Digital lost $290 million on $3.5 billion in revenue in that same period.

After the verdict, which was reported during trading hours, Western Digital shares rose 25 cents, to $7.69, in New York Stock Exchange trading.

Reuters and Times staff writer Jonathan Gaw contributed to this report.