The department had asked Judge Amit Mehta in a court filing to sanction Google, saying the company's"Communicate with Care" program, which asked employees to add a lawyer to many emails, was sometimes a"game" to shield communications that did not genuinely fall under attorney-client privilege. Google responded that it did nothing wrong.
Mehta, of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, said that there were an"eye-popping" 140,000 documents originally slated as falling under attorney-client privilege but that 98,000 or those were quickly given to the government. But he also said that he was"not sure a federal court has the authority" to sanction that practice since it occurred before the government filed its lawsuit.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit against Google in 2020, accusing it of violating antitrust law in its handling of its search business. Trial was set for September 2023.