The company's counsel is to keep them in line with the law, to the letter if not
also the spirit. There's a lot of wiggle room in there, but ultimately counsel
doesn't run the company - executives do, and the company is liable for what the
executives say; more so when those statements are public.
So, if an executive (e.g. CEO, COO) says to another company that X is okay, even
in private, that company can take that as the companies word. If another
executive says "hold on, that's not" then the company needs to get
clarification from them to see who's right. If no other executive speaks, then
that's all there is. Now if that is done in public, it's even stronger.
So it is really important to have Schwartz's statements, and the fact is he
backs up Google's position. It'll be interesting to see how McNealy testifies,
though I expect he'll be backing up Schwartz.
(As always...IANAL)[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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