META SHAREHOLDERS SEEK SANCTIONS FOR SANDBERG, ZIENTS FOR DELETING CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA EMAILS

2018 shareholder lawsuit that alleged Facebook officers and directors violated both the law and their fiduciary duties in failing for years to protect the privacy of user data.

“Although Sandberg and Zients received a litigation hold requiring them to preserve documents from these accounts, they both knowingly and permanently destroyed electronically stored information from such sources,” attorneys said in a court filing.

The plaintiffs say the former board members were either “reckless or intentional” in destroying documents, noting that Sandberg deleted communications to and from her Gmail account after only 30 days, even after being notified of the “litigation hold” to preserve documents. Zients never disabled an auto-delete function on his email account, even though he, too, received a litigation hold and consulted with lawyers, they said.

The plaintiffs argue that Sandberg and Zients should be prohibited from testifying about information they sent or received using their personal email accounts. They also say the burden of proof for any affirmative defense they present should be raised to a standard of “clear and convincing evidence,” instead of the lower standard of a “preponderance” of the evidence.

Sandberg was deposed last week. Plaintiff attorney Max Huffman said Zients is “busy” and will be deposed in February “after there’s an effective transition in Washington.”