Judge rules Google was too slow to keep employee chat messages, orders sanctions

A federal judge accused Google of being too slow to retain employee chat messages for potential legal evidence, as he ruled that sanctions were warranted. The judge wrote Tuesday in a filing that the court concluded that Google did not take reasonable steps to preserve electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation. According to the court document, he said that Google employee chat message evidence was lost with the intent to prevent its use in litigation and with the intent to deprive another party of the information s used in litigation.

The order came from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge James Donato in the multidistrict litigation case of Epic Games, Inc. v. Google LLC et al, an antitrust case related to the Google Play Store.

The judge claimed that Google gave each employee carte blanche to make a call about what might be relevant in this complex antitrust case, and whether a Chat communication should be preserved. He suggested that the tech giant could have made it so that all chats were saved rather than deleted automatically after a certain time frame.

For years, our teams have worked hard to respond to Epic and that state AG's discovery requests, and we have produced over 3 million documents, including thousands of chats, a Google spokeswoman told FOX Business. We will show the court how choice, security and openness are built into Android and Google Play. In his order, Donato said that a decision on the case will not be made on the basis of lost Chat communications. He added that further proceedings are needed for the court to figure out an appropriate non-monetary sanction.

The judge ordered the plaintiffs to create a statement detailing attorneys' fees and costs that were racked up related to a Rule 37 motion by April 21. He said it was appropriate for the tech giant to cover such fees as a monetary sanction.

In a separate case brought by the Department of Justice, Google was accused of not retaining some chat communication properly, claims that the tech giant pushed back on, according to a report by the tech giant.

FOX Business reached out to Epic Games for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Google Play has been around for a long time and has had over 2 million apps and games on it as of June 2021.