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According to the latest charges filed by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Google employees inappropriately used customer privileges to conceal material from detection during lawsuits and investigations by the US Department of Justice. government.
“Google has clearly and repeatedly instructed its employees to protect critical business communications from detection by using false claims for legal advice,” the DOJ attorney said. written in a court filed search monopoly lawsuit against Google.
According to apply to court [PDF], Google has taught employees to label the attorney-client privilege and general “requires” for an attorney’s advice label for any sensitive business information that Google may wish to shield in order to not detected. Placing these labels on communications will prevent them from being made available for discovery in litigation.
This method is said to have been used at all levels of Google’s hierarchy, with the DOJ claiming Google parent company CEO Sundar Pichai copied Google’s chief legal officer Kent Walker into it. an email to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki about how to respond to a press inquiry, with “Attorney’s Privilege Client” at the top.
In these “disguised” exchanges, the alleged attorney frequently remained silent, which the DOJ stated emphasized that these exchanges were not actual requests for legal advice but ” attempt to conceal potential evidence”.
“Google’s strategy has worked. Google’s outside attorneys often accept bogus claims from Googlers for privileges at face value,” the DOJ attorney wrote in the court filing.
According to the DOJ, tens of thousands of original documents have been withheld or redacted on an attorney-client privilege basis.
Some of these documents were stripped of their rights by outside Google attorneys, but only after repeatedly challenging the privilege requests, the DOJ attorney wrote.
However, stripping these documents does not cure alleged misconduct in Google’s attempt to conceal relevant information, the Justice Department said.
In light of these revelations, the DOJ has asked the presiding judge of the Google sanction search monopoly case to disclose all documents and emails between non-attorneys to which internal attorneys did not respond. .
It’s been a year and a half since the search monopoly lawsuit was brought against Google. In the lawsuit, the DOJ and 11 states accuse the company of maintaining an illegal monopoly over the online search and search advertising market.
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