The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a judge to rule that Google abused its attorney-client privilege to avoid filing documents. The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Google’s search business with antitrust violations in 2020.
The U.S. Justice Department in a court filing asked for punishment for Google’s “careful communication” program, which trains employees to include a lawyer when writing sensitive business matters and asks for advice.
Google’s in-house lawyers are well aware of the arrangement and often don’t respond to such emails. The Justice Department said many of the emails were related to revenue-sharing agreements Google had with other companies.
A Google spokesman said the company had provided more than 4 million documents to the government. “Our team has worked diligently over the years to respond to inquiries and lawsuits, and it is simply wrong to argue to the contrary,” the spokesperson said.