“We’re extremely pleased to have Doug join the Intel team,” said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. “His breadth of experience and legal expertise combined with his background in government are an outstanding fit for us.”

Melamed’s appointment must be quite a relief for Otellini and Intel, which, as I’ve noted here before, is grappling with some of the most important legal issues the company has ever faced.

Sewell joined Intel (INTC) in 1995 as a senior attorney and was named general counsel in 2004. In that capacity, he managed Intel’s antitrust battles in Japan, Korea, the United States and now, the European Union as well. At Apple (AAPL), he succeeds Daniel Cooperman, who will retire at month’s end.

“We are thrilled to have Bruce join our executive team, and wish Dan a very happy retirement,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. “With Bruce’s extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition.”

It would seem, then, that Sewell’s decision to leave Intel for Apple is more train-hopping than anything else. And while it certainly comes at a lousy time for Intel, it’s not likely indicative of some upset within the company’s legal department.

As Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood told me this morning, “Some personnel changes result from the circumstances of the individuals involved, rather than high level machinations within the organizations to which they belong. Cooperman’s retirement created the opening at Apple, a position Sewell is well qualified to fill. My bottom line: Bruce’s move has more to do with Apple’s need for a top notch lawyer than with Intel’s current legal situation.”

The official announcement, below.

Bruce Sewell to Join Apple as General Counsel & SVP

Daniel Cooperman to Retire

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple today announced that Bruce Sewell, formerly senior vice president and general counsel of Intel Corporation (INTC), will join Apple as the company’s General Counsel and senior vice president, Legal and Government Affairs, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Daniel Cooperman, who has served in these roles at Apple for the past two years, will be retiring at the end of September.

“We are thrilled to have Bruce join our executive team, and wish Dan a very happy retirement,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Bruce’s extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition.”

At Intel, Sewell has been responsible for leading all of Intel’s legal, corporate affairs and corporate social responsibility programs, managing attorneys and policy professionals located in over 30 countries around the world. He joined Intel in 1995 as a senior attorney assigned to counsel various business groups in areas such as antitrust compliance, licensing and intellectual property. In 2001, Sewell was promoted to vice president and deputy general counsel, managing Intel’s litigation portfolio, and handled corporate transactions including M&A activities.

Prior to joining Intel, he was a partner in the litigation firm of Brown and Bain PC. Sewell was admitted to the California Bar in 1986 and to the Washington D.C. Bar in 1987. He received his J.D. from George Washington University in 1986, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Lancaster, in the United Kingdom, in 1979.

Which is interesting since Sewell has been quarterbacking Intel’s (INTC) fight against antitrust allegations at home and abroad since, well, since they were first brought against the company in Japan. And Korea. And the United States, and now the European Union as well.

So to hear he’s leaving today after 14 years with the company with no explanation of why or where he’s headed…

to hear there’s no one lined up to take his place (Suzan Miller, currently deputy general counsel, will become interim general counsel until a replacement is found)…

and to hear this at a time when the company is grappling with some of the most important legal issues it’s ever faced…

when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission are both probing Intel’s alleged antitrust violations in the microprocessor market…

when the company is just six months away from going to trial with rival chip maker AMD (AMD), which accuses Intel of using illegal inducements to dissuade OEMs from buying AMD processors and “knee-capping” those who did….

Well, it’s all a bit odd, isn’t it?

I mean Sewell’s Intel bio is already returning “Page Not Found” errors (see below; click image to enlarge).

What’s going on in Intel legal? Reached for comment, the company didn’t have much of an answer to the question other than to say that Sewell is leaving of his own accord and it’s sad to see him go. “All I can say is that Bruce has decided voluntarily to leave the company,” Intel spokesman Chuck Molloy told me. “We are not talking about his plans. He was not forced to leave and we were surprised by his decision.”

UPDATE: Sewell’s leaving Intel to become General Counsel at Apple.

Microsoft and the European Commission have canceled a face-to-face hearing in an antitrust case pending against the company over a scheduling dispute, of all things. Seems Microsoft is unhappy with the date of the hearing, which it says falls during a time when key senior regulators will be unable to attend. “The dates the Commission selected for our hearing, June 3-5, coincide with the most important worldwide intergovernmental competition law meeting, the International Competition Network meeting,” Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post. “As a result, it appears that many of the most influential Commission and national competition officials with the greatest interest in our case will be in Zurich and so unable to attend our hearing in Brussels.”

Microsoft (MSFT) asked the EC to reschedule. It refused, claiming June 3-5 are the only dates that a suitable room is available in Brussels for a hearing. Which is, of course, ridiculous. But no more so than Microsoft’s argument that the hearing will suffer from the absence of European decision-makers, says Thomas Vinje, counsel for Opera, a complainant in the case. Because, in all likelihood, those folks wouldn’t have attended anyway. “Such people simply don’t attend such hearings, and Microsoft knows it,” Vinje told the Financial Times. “The undoubted truth must simply be that Microsoft is afraid of facing the questions and evidence it would face from the Commission and from those aligned against it.”

The settlement marks the end of a legal debacle that began back in 2006, after an investigation by the Apple board uncovered some troubling options grants at the company. It also means that Jobs, who was likely to have been called to testify in Heinen’s SEC trial, won’t be. “This is it for backdating of stock options and Apple,” Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University, told the Los Angeles Times. “Steve Jobs dodged a bullet.”