Google’s efforts to “destroy” evidence in a major US court case has backfired, with a Federal judge claiming that he had “never seen anything so egregious” after viewing “disturbing evidence” that the big search Company who also tries to nobble media Companies, that are critical of their practises and products.
developed an auto-erase feature to delete reams of relevant employee chat logs it had been ordered to preserve in the Epic Games, Play Store case.
This is the same US Company that believes they are so powerful they can flaunt consumer laws in Australia.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai struts into a US Court room surrounded by private security guards
US District Judge James Donato – who is presiding over the “Fortnite” maker Epic Games’ antitrust case and the actions of Microsoft who via their Play Store that is seen along with the Apple store as having a monopoly is not happy with the actions of senior management who have been described as having “wilful and intentionally suppressed relevant evidence in the case, most probably because it would have been damaging claim observers.
Google’s “disturbing” effort to destroy evidence is set to become a powerful weapon in the Justice Department’s landmark effort to break up its search empire – and could haunt the company in court for years to come, according to legal experts.
Donato, who had already sanctioned Google in March over the deleted logs and its practice of instructing employees to label documents as privileged and confidential, said Google’s “wilful and intentional suppression of relevant evidence in this case is deeply troubling to me as an officer of the court.”
“This conduct is a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice. It undercuts due process. It calls into question just resolution of legal disputes. It is antithetical to our system,” Donato added.
He also slammed Google general counsel Kent Walker for “tap-dancing around” questions about why the company had deliberately ignored his requests and moved to preserve relevant chats as ordered.
The New York Post claims that Donato’s smackdown bolsters claims by the Justice Department’s attorneys who made Google’s evidence destruction a major theme at the trial – with lead attorney Kenneth Dintzer declaring from the outset that the company “hid and destroyed documents because they knew they were violating the antitrust laws.”
Judge Amit Mehta below, is overseeing the Google search antitrust trial.
District Judge Amit P. Mehta
So far, Mehta has avoided making a decision on whether to sanction Google over the lost documents.
“That’s something that the DOJ will, I’m sure, in their post-trial briefing, will point out to Judge Mehta again and again. Katherine Van Dyck, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, told The Post.
“If Judge Mehta looks at what Judge Donato has said about Google’s behaviour and decides he agrees with it, that’s going to be a problem for Google…this is very bad for Google to have this out there in the world,” Van Dyck added.
Donato’s public takedown is likely to surface in a number of other cases targeting Google’s sprawling global empire, Van Dyck added.
And that includes in Australia where the search business has already been found guilty and ordered to pay fines for making misleading statements.
In Australia a Federal Court Judge recently has ordered Google LLC to pay $60 million in penalties for making misleading representations to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones between January 2017 and December 2018, following court action by the ACCC.
The Court previously found that Google LLC and Google Australia Pty Ltd (together, Google) had breached the Australian Consumer Law by representing to some Android users that the setting titled “Location History” was the only Google account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept and used personally identifiable data about their location.
Aside from the Google v. Epic Games trial in the USA and the DOJ’s search trial, Google is facing a wave of additional antitrust probes in markets such as Australia, including ones targeting its digital ad practices and Google Maps, that could shake up its entire business model.
Recently the DOJ filed a motion to sanction Google for destroying evidence as far back as February, but pretrial proceedings and the exhaustive 10-week trial itself wrapped up without Mehta ever ruling on the request.
