Samsung failed in e-disclosure responsibilities

Category: Electronic Disclosure

27 July, 2012

Samsung has been sanctioned for deleting email evidence after it was clear that litigation was inevitable.

Under compliance guidelines, businesses must suspend data deletion policies whenever it seems litigation is likely, in order to protect the integrity of evidence.

This also ensures that no important information is deliberately destroyed in the process.

However, US federal judge Paul Grewal will tell a jury that Samsung did not abide by its obligation to preserve relevant evidence before it hears the case for whether the Korean company infringed on Apple's intellectual property.

In the company's current system, emails are automatically deleted every two weeks unless specifically saved by employees, but data deletion continued after the case was filed in April 2011.

"In light of its bi-weekly automatic destruction policy, Samsung had a duty to verify whether its employees were actually complying with the detailed instructions Samsung claims it communicated to them," Judge Grewal said in a court filing.

"As far as the court can see, Samsung did nothing in this regard."

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