A Delaware judge has sanctioned Meta Platforms’ former Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, for deleting emails related to the litigation over Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.
Despite being instructed to preserve the messages, Sandberg was found to have used a personal account under a pseudonym to erase potentially crucial communications.
The ruling, issued by Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of Delaware Chancery Court, follows evidence suggesting that Sandberg intentionally deleted messages that could have been vital to the shareholder lawsuit. The court’s decision is expected to make it more challenging for Sandberg to present her defense during an eight-day non-jury trial scheduled for April.
Judge Laster further ordered Sandberg to cover the costs incurred by the shareholders in pursuing the sanctions, including expenses from California’s massive teachers’ retirement system, CalSTRS.
In his opinion, Laster stated that Sandberg’s selective deletion of Gmail messages likely resulted in the loss of “the most sensitive and probative exchanges.” While Sandberg argued she was transparent about her personal account and rarely used it for business, the judge imposed a stricter standard of proof for her defense.
The shareholder lawsuit, filed in 2018, accuses Facebook’s leadership of violating a 2012 Federal Trade Commission order by mishandling user data, which facilitated the access of millions of users’ information by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
