ars Technica
By JON BRODKIN –
A federal judge yesterday ruled that Google intentionally destroyed evidence and must be sanctioned, rejecting the company’s argument that it didn’t need to automatically preserve internal chats involving employees subject to a legal hold.
“After substantial briefing by both sides, and an evidentiary hearing that featured witness testimony and other evidence, the Court concludes that sanctions are warranted,” US District Judge James Donato wrote. Later in the ruling, he wrote that evidence shows that “Google intended to subvert the discovery process, and that Chat evidence was ‘lost with the intent to prevent its use in litigation’ and ‘with the intent to deprive another party of the information’s use in the litigation.'”