Last week, Federal Judge James Donato ruled that Google neglected to preserve chat evidence that was under a legal hold, and that the company knew better. As a result, the judge approved spoliation sanctions against the tech giant.
The plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation case, Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, first noted the absence of Google’s internal chat messaging data back in April 2021. Google responded in October 2021 stating that all internal Google chats are typically auto-deleted within 24 hours, and that the company had stayed true to that schedule in spite of the MDL legal hold.
