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The
department had asked Judge Amit Mehta in a court filing to
sanction Google, saying the company's "Communicate with Care"
program, which asked employees to add a lawyer to many emails,
was sometimes a "game" to shield communications that did not
genuinely fall under attorney-client privilege. Google responded
that it did nothing wrong.
Mehta, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,
said that there were an "eye-popping" 140,000 documents
originally slated as falling under attorney-client privilege but
that 98,000 or those were quickly given to the government. But
he also said that he was "not sure a federal court has the
authority" to sanction that practice since it occurred before
the government filed its lawsuit.
John Schmidtlein, Google's attorney in the case, said that
21,000 of the emails were still at issue.
Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department's lawyer, asked that
Google be sanctioned for the practice and be required to turn
over the 21,000 emails. He argued that the practice cost the
government valuable time in putting together its case.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit against Google in 2020,
accusing it of violating antitrust law in its handling of its
search business. Trial was set for September 2023.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Bernard Orr)
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