Apple Inc. said D. Bruce Sewell will become its new general counsel, one day after Intel Corp. said the executive was resigning amid a management reorganization by the chip maker.Mr. Sewell, who is 50 years old, replaces Daniel Cooperman, who will retire from Apple at month's end. The exit of Mr. Sewell, a 14-year Intel veteran, was viewed as one of the biggest surprises in the reorganization announced Monday by Intel, which placed more responsibility on three senior officials under Chief Executive Paul Otellini.
No explanation for Mr. Sewell's decision was given at the time.
An Apple spokesman said Mr. Sewell wasn't available for comment Tuesday. But the job at Apple is considered attractive, and its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., is close to Intel's in Santa Clara.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement that "with Bruce's extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition."
Before joining Intel, Mr. Sewell was a partner at Brown & Bain PC, where he represented Apple in its case with Microsoft Corp. over copyrightability of the Macintosh user interface.
Mr. Cooperman took the general counsel post at Apple during a round of musical chairs among tech giants two years ago. He joined the company from Oracle Corp. after Donald Rosenberg left Apple to become Qualcomm Corp.'s chief attorney.Mr. Rosenberg had joined Apple in 2006 from International Business Machines Corp. to succeed Nancy Heinen, who became a target in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation over alleged stock-options backdating. In 2008, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Ms. Heinen agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle SEC charges.
