> Google did not. Instead, as described above, Google abdicated its burden to individual custodians to preserve potentially relevant chats.
Google didn't do it, it was those other individuals who defied the court order. Uh huh.
Google didn't do it, it was those other individuals who defied the court order. Uh huh.
> Google may argue that it relied on individual custodians to manually preserve history-off chats. But that argument should be rejected for two reasons.
> First, it is and was Google’s obligation to suspend auto-deletion policies; it is no defense to suggest that individual custodians—Google employees—owned that obligation. Samsung, 881 F. Supp. 2d at 1137 (“[I]t generally is recognized that when a company or organization has a document retention policy, it is obligated to suspend that policy . . . .”) (cleaned up) (italics added). Google designed the chat systems and document preservation policies at issue here.
> And Google elected to set the default to history off for many chats. Indeed, Google maintained the “off the record” default despite employee complaints that the default caused them to lose important conversations.19
> Second, Google cannot escape sanctions by shifting the blame to its custodians. For spoliation purposes, destruction of evidence by Google’s employees is attributable to the company. See, e.g., E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Kolon Indus., Inc., 803 F. Supp. 2d 469, 506‒07 (E.D. Va. 2011) (“A party may be held responsible for the spoliation of relevant evidence done by its agents.”). Courts commonly sanction corporate litigants for the spoliation of their employees and executives. See, e.g., Borum, 332 F.R.D. at 42 (emails deleted by employee). Accordingly, Google violated its duty to preserve potentially relevant evidence on a daily basis from May 2019 through the present.
>> Google didn't do it, it was those other individuals who defied the court order. Uh huh.
> That's not what that means.
It's exactly what I meant. In context, the meaning of the text is incidental. I was obviously pointing out a common tactic that companies employ.
One assumes that if anyone had asked legal they would have been told they must switch off auto-delete. Lawyers aren't stupid they value their licence far more than their current job. I am highly doubtful there would be any written advice that said anything other than, if in doubt save.
Eh, utterly impractical but I still think there should be a way to "jail" corporations. Easy - "Your offices are closed for the duration of the sentence. Your systems are shut down for the duration. Automatic payments set up in advance can continue as long as there are funds in your bank accounts, but your staff will not be monitoring them. You can appoint someone external to the organization to take care of some obligations."
Survivable as a business for short enough sentences (effectively comparable to a devastating ransomware attack), but mighty painful and anyone involved will absolutely feel the wrath of ownership/shareholders.
Have the top officers who remain put their division on the auction block to the highest bidder, on a sold twice system, best deal wins. That is the company as a whole is sold, in parallel all divisions are sold separately: then add up the different bids, and whoever paid more: whole company vs all the individual departments separate wins. Although there are conflicts of interests, I think the officers who remain should both be allowed to bid, and also consult to other bidders: but the consults must be in public as are their bids.
Shareholders are treated as if the company is bankrupt: government fines, remaining employees, banks, and then the lawyers all get paid. If there is money left over shareholders get it.
I want people that dictate that a company does evil to pay the same price as if they were doing the same thing without the corporate shield. If felons lose the right to vote and are prevented from other rights afforded to other citizens, then corporate felons should also lose rights like never being able to lead a company, pay fines, as well as possibly being a guest of the state.
A default judgement in favor of the government on the underlying antitrust case would be far more effective, and is actually a potential (though extreme) remedy (requiring neither indictment, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or involvement of a jury) if willful failure to preserve evidence is found.