A federal arbiter’s ordering Western Digital to pay Seagate...

Minnesota’s Hennepin County District Court against Western and one employee in October 2006, Western Digital said. The lawsuit switched to an arbitration case in 2007, a Western Digital spokesman said. The employee involved in the arbitration case and a hearing that began May 23 and ended July 11 hasn’t been identified. But the case appears to have its roots in a lawsuit Seagate filed three years earlier against Western Digital and former Seagate research scientist Peter Goglia in Hennepin County court. Seagate claimed Goglia violated an employment contract barring him from disclosing confidential information. But the case involving Goglia, which remains pending, came to light during a search of U.S. District Court records. Goglia joined Seagate in 1987, following its acquisition of Control Data, and became a “key member” of Seagate’s recording head division’s engineering team, rising to become executive engineering director of Seagate’s advanced mechanical technology division, Seagate said in court papers. Goglia’s division was responsible for developing recording head technology and integrating it with the Seagate’s next generation of products. Goglia joined Western Digital as the hard drive maker shifted to become a vertically integrated company after its 2003 acquisition of recording head technology developer Read-Rite, Seagate said. In its 2004 lawsuit, Seagate accused Western Digital of trying to “poach” its technical employees “on a large-scale basis” as it sought to rebuild Read-Rite R&D group, which suffered departures following the company’s filing for bankruptcy. Western Digital approached “at least” six Seagate senior-level executives with knowledge of trade secrets about joining the company, Seagate said. Goglia left in July 2004, it said. Western Digital plans to appeal the arbiter’s decision, a spokesman said.