Google seeks to steer clear of DOJ sanctions about ‘attorney-client privilege’ e-mail

Alphabet’s Google urged a choose listening to a US antitrust case against it to reject the Justice Department’s request that it be sanctioned, stating it experienced not abused attorney-shopper privilege.

The department experienced questioned Judge Amit Mehta to sanction Google, indicating the company’s “Communicate with Care” system was at times a “game” to defend communications that did not genuinely slide under attorney-consumer privilege. 

In a submitting dated Thursday, Google said that “allegations of sanctionable misconduct are baseless” and a misreading of a little range of slides utilized to educate staff members.

Google also said it was conferring with the government on which email messages that are indicated as most likely falling below attorney-customer privilege genuinely do. It stated it experienced offered the government some of the impacted documents.

“Plaintiffs arrive nowhere shut to proving the lousy-faith misconduct that is required to strip a social gathering of its privilege protections,” Google mentioned in its submitting.

“Google has explicitly and continuously instructed its workforce to shield important business communications from discovery by employing fake requests for authorized guidance,” lawyers for the Justice Section wrote in a filing.

“Specifically, Google teaches its personnel to add an lawyer, a privilege label, and a generic ‘request’ for counsel’s suggestions to any delicate company communications the staff members or Google may wish to defend from discovery.” 

In one particular such instance from 2018, CEO Sundar Pichai emailed YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki to explore an forthcoming push story. 

“Attorney Client Privileged, Private,” Pichai wrote, copying Google’s then-standard counsel Kent Walker. “Kent pls suggest.” 

But Walker seemingly never ever replied to the thread, which the Justice Section mentioned was “directed to a non-attorney” about “a non-lawful press issue.”

The email was to begin with withheld by Google in an ongoing antitrust scenario and was only developed just after the Justice Division challenged it, the department reported. 

The Justice Office submitted the lawsuit towards Google in 2020, accusing it of violating antitrust regulation in its dealing with of its search small business. Trial was established for September 2023.