Google denies destroying 'chat' evidence in U.S. antitrust lawsuit

https://www.reuters.com/legal/google-denies-destroying-chat-evidence-us-antitrust-lawsuit-2023-03-20/

by mfiguiere • 3 years ago

35 10 3 years ago

sharemywin• 3 years ago

I'd be held in contempt of court if I couldn't come up with documents. probably sit in jail until I found them.

olliej• 3 years ago

well obviously. You're not a billionaire. Billionaires have demonstrated that they are trustworthy and good, otherwise they wouldn't be billionaires. Duh.

More seriously it remains astounding to me that it doesn't matter what executives do, they can always turn around and say "I may have been acting illegally, but I was doing that as the company, so the company should have consequences and I shouldn't".

If I'm in a gang, and taking part in criminal activities as part of being in that gang, I don't get to turn around and say "I was doing that as a gang representative, so I shouldn't go to jail, it's the gang that was breaking the law, and it should pay a fine". For example: googling "gang drug bust" reveals lots of arrests, and lots of people going to jail. But if those gangs incorporated themselves into LLCs they could kill thousands and just pay fines, as Purdue did.

skissane• 3 years ago

If I'm in a gang, and taking part in criminal activities as part of being in that gang, I don't get to turn around and say "I was doing that as a gang representative, so I shouldn't go to jail, it's the gang that was breaking the law, and it should pay a fine". For example: googling "gang drug bust" reveals lots of arrests, and lots of people going to jail. But if those gangs incorporated themselves into LLCs they could kill thousands and just pay fines, as Purdue did.

From a legal perspective, selling illegal drugs is an inherently criminal enterprise. By contrast, a mega-corp which violates anti-trust laws is not an inherently criminal enterprise – the underlying business is entirely legal, it is only the anti-competitive business practices which are illegal. And drawing the boundary between legal and illegal business practices, and the criminally illegal vs the merely civilly illegal, can involve a lot of debatable judgement calls about legal grey areas and technicalities, subjective psychological states of business executives (intentions, "understandings"), etc. Illegal drugs are much more black or white in practice – are these bags of white powder cocaine or sugar? And if cocaine, do you have a government license to manufacture/possess/sell it? A drug gang incorporating itself as an LLC wouldn't put itself legally in any better position than it is without being one.

And Purdue Pharmaceuticals didn't "kill thousands" in the same way as a drug gang does – through selling illegal drugs or through murder. If a drug gang was doing what Purdue did – marketing legal prescription pharmaceuticals, in full possession of the necessary government licenses/approvals for doing so, but doing so in a way which was reckless to the harm they were causing to patients – then a drug gang would probably only get fined just like Purdue did. But then nobody would call it a "drug gang", we'd all call it a "pharmaceutical company"

brutusurp• 3 years ago

When I think about "flattening of corporate management," this immediately comes to mind.

izacus2• 3 years ago

Personal conversations aren't documents.

bmitc2• 3 years ago

Using a company communication system is not a personal conversation. Even if it was, they were told and agreed to keep them and then didn't.

genmud• 3 years ago

Ah yes, the “we didn’t log those things that you explicitly told us to log”, defense. Let’s see how it works out.

Google denies destroying 'chat' evidence in U.S. antitrust lawsuit

Related Stories