Washington, D.C. — Earlier today, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division filed a motion in the Eastern District of Virginia reporting a series of gross failures by Google to produce hundreds of thousands— and possibly millions—of documents by a July deadline imposed by the Court. In response, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Google has been caught defying court orders on multiple occasions when under judicial scrutiny.” said Katherine Van Dyck, Senior Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “It’s clear that Google will use every dirty play in the book to protect its monopoly power, including ‘forgetting’ to review between 1 and 4 million documents. All entities, irrespective of their size or influence, must adhere to the core principles of openness and accountability in our judicial system. Google is not above the law, and its pattern of misconduct and obstruction across cases should not be tolerated by the court.”

Ms. Van Dyck added, “Google is a sophisticated litigant with lawyers from some of the largest and best law firms in the world. It knows what is required, it has the resources, and it knows how to navigate the technology used to screen and identify relevant documents. Failing to comply with these discovery deadlines is inexcusable and especially egregious in EDVA’s infamous rocket docket. It’s not surprising that Magistrate Judge Anderson told Google at a hearing on September 1st that there are going to be consequences. This an obvious attempt, yet again, to delay a trial and economic justice, and Google’s repeat offender status merits serious sanctions.”

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.