Western Digital' SanDisk Seek Injunctive Relief Against Toshiba In Court

(RTTNews) - Western Digital Corp. (WDC) announced that several of its SanDisk subsidiaries have sought preliminary injunctive relief in the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco preventing Toshiba Corp. from transferring its three NAND flash-memory joint ventures operated with Western Digital until the request of the SanDisk subsidiaries for injunctive relief in arbitration is decided by the arbitral tribunal.

Steve Milligan, chief executive officer of Western Digital, stated, "Western Digital has been working tirelessly to reach an agreement that is beneficial to all stakeholders. Toshiba Corporation's attempts to circumvent our contractual rights have left us with no choice but to take this action. It is our concern that, left unchecked, Toshiba would pursue a course that clearly violates these rights and also runs decidedly counter to the best interests of the JVs and also to the hard working people at Toshiba Corporation's NAND Flash business in Japan."

"Western Digital's desire to work collaboratively with Toshiba for the benefit of the JVs and Japan is stronger than ever, and we will continue to pursue a solution that is in the best interests of all parties," Milligan said.

Western Digital noted that the anti-transfer provisions of the relevant agreements between Toshiba and SanDisk, which govern their NAND flash memory joint ventures ("JV agreements"), are unambiguous and explicitly require that Toshiba obtain SanDisk's consent prior to any transfer of JV interests. Toshiba has acknowledged and validated SanDisk's consent rights on multiple occasions in the past.