Feds say Google is stalling on order to produce company documents

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) — Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday accused Google of slow-walking a judge’s order to produce internal analyses on divestiture plans, as well as documents from a bombshell case against the dotcom in Europe.

Three weeks have passed since a magistrate judge instructed Google’s legal team to produce internal documents describing the “work that would be required to modify Google’s ad exchange and Google’s publisher ad server to facilitate divestiture,” as requested by the Department of Justice.

As of Friday, Google had produced 57 documents, some with redactions. U.S. Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson has agreed to conduct an in camera review of 10 documents produced by the dotcom.

For federal attorneys, that may not be enough. They charge that Google is dragging its feet on releasing documents after a court clearly ordered it to do so.

“This has become a pattern: Google pays lip service to its discovery obligations, only to frustrate those obligations from being satisfied,” they griped in court filings. “So too here. Google claims to comply with this court’s May 30 order … but it produces only a limited set of documents.” They charge that Google “frustrates any meaningful review or analysis of those documents by redacting most of their contents.”

The document dispute concerns possible evidence for an upcoming trial to determine legal remedies for the dotcom’s antitrust violations. That’s after another jurist — U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, a Bill Clinton appointee — ruled in April that Google wielded monopolistic power in the advertising industry. In yet another case, Google was also convicted of antitrust violations involving its search engine.

During trial in Brinkema’s court, company representatives were accused of including attorney-client privilege notices on communications even when there was no indication a lawyer was needed or involved. That issue arose again Friday, as attorneys sparred over redactions. Anderson appeared to share the government’s frustrations, at one point remarking: “I am concerned about the interpretation of privilege.” Still, he said he would keep an open mind for the in camera review.

One of Google’s lead attorneys, Jeannie Rhee, explained that vetting the documents — produced by different individuals working at different times — has taken “tremendous amounts of time.”

Google is in fact working to diligently comply with the order, dotcom attorneys insisted in a court filing.

“In addition to searching through the millions of documents provided in prior productions with expansive search terms, Google conducted an extensive search for additional responsive materials from 2023 to the present,” they wrote, laying out their efforts.

Another issue involves a separate European case. Earlier this week, Advocate General Juliane Kokott, an official with the European Union’s Court of Justice, recommended the court uphold a 2018 decision by the European Commission imposing a €4.124 billion fine on Google for anticompetitive behavior. That’s $4.73 billion in U.S. dollars.

Justice Department attorneys want documents used in that case — but Google has refused to produce submissions to the European Commission regarding remedies. The company claims confidentiality, but Justice Department lawyers note that the European Commission already rejected those same arguments. Google, meanwhile, has sought clarification on the commission’s decision from a hearing officer, an independent arbiter established to rule on such disputes.

In his written order issued late Friday, Anderson instructed that by close of business June 27, Google attorneys must provide the court with a status report concerning the request for clarification submitted to the hearing officer.