Google routinely hides emails from litigation by CCing attorneys, DOJ alleges

Enlarge / Google CEO Sundar Pichai uses his phone during the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 12, 2018, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (credit: Getty Images | Drew Angerer )

The US Department of Justice and 14 state attorneys general yesterday asked a federal judge to sanction Google for misusing attorney-client privilege to hide emails from litigation.

"In a program called 'Communicate with Care,' Google trains and directs employees to add an attorney, a privilege label, and a generic 'request' for counsel's advice to shield sensitive business communications, regardless of whether any legal advice is actually needed or sought. Often, knowing the game, the in-house counsel included in these Communicate-with-Care emails does not respond at all," the DOJ told the court. The fact that attorneys often don't reply to the emails "underscor[es] that these communications are not genuine requests for legal advice but rather an effort to hide potential evidence," the DOJ said.

The DOJ made its argument in a motion to sanction Google "and compel disclosure of documents unjustifiably claimed by Google as attorney-client privileged" and in a memorandum in support of the motion. "The Communicate-with-Care program had no purpose except to mislead anyone who might seek the documents in an investigation, discovery, or ensuing dispute," the DOJ alleged.

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