The US Department of Justice accuses Google of training its employees how to protect business communications from detection in the event of litigation “by falsely seeking legal advice”. As axios reportsThe DOJ has told the judge overseeing its antitrust case against the tech giant that Google directs employees to include internal counsel in written communications, seal them with attorney-client privilege and seek legal advice, even when it isn’t required. The department is now asking the judge to sanction the company “for its extensive and premeditated efforts to abuse attorney-client privilege to conceal business documents relevant to the case.”
By doing meager (PDF) his attorneys wrote for the judge that DOJ said Google refers to the practice as “Communicate with Care” and that it was first introduced no later than 2015. New hires are reportedly instructed to follow the practice with no discussion as to whether they should only be employed when legal advice is genuinely needed. Additionally, Google has allegedly provided the same training for teams involved in search distribution for the department’s (and other agencies’) antitrust cases.
Google specifically directed these teams to follow the practice for any written communication containing revenue share agreements and mobile application distribution agreements, based on the presentation slides the DOJ included in its briefing. These agreements are central to the case. If you recall, in its 2020 antitrust lawsuit, the DOJ accused Google of having an unfair monopoly over search and search-related advertising. It also questioned its conditions for Android device makers, which force them to preload Google apps and set Google as the default search engine.
According to the DOJ, statements such as “adding legal” or “adding [attorney] “for legal advice” appear in thousands of Google Docs. These emails did not appear to contain a specific request for advice, and lawyers rarely respond to Sundar Pichai.
The DOJ is now asking the court to find Google’s conduct punishable by law and to order it to immediately produce “all withheld or redacted emails in which no attorney responded to the alleged request for legal advice.”
Google spokeswoman Julie Tarallo McAlister defended the company in a statement sent to axios, but called the allegations “completely false”. McAlister said:
“Our teams have worked diligently for years to respond to inquiries and litigation, and suggestions to the contrary are simply wrong. Just like other American companies, we educate our employees about legal privileges and when to seek legal advice. And we produced over four million documents to the DOJ in this case alone — including many that employees had viewed as potentially privileged.”
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