In Wilmington, Delaware, on January 21 (Reuters) - Former Chief Operating Officer of Meta Platforms, Sheryl Sandberg, was reprimanded by a judge on Tuesday for deleting emails tied to a privacy scandal, despite being instructed to retain the messages.
Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of the Delaware Chancery Court stated that evidence revealed Sandberg had used a personal account under a fake name and erased messages that were likely pertinent to the shareholder lawsuit.
This sanction will hinder Sandberg's ability to present her perspective and evade accountability at the eight-day, non-jury trial set for April. Additionally, the judge directed her to cover the costs associated with the sanctions motion, as incurred by the shareholders, including California's substantial teachers' retirement system, known as CalSTRS.
According to Laster's published opinion on Tuesday, "Because Sandberg selectively deleted items from her Gmail account, it is likely that the most sensitive and probative exchanges are gone."
Meta and an attorney representing Sandberg did not promptly respond to a request for comment.
Sandberg contended that she was transparent about the personal account and rarely used it for business; when she did, others were copied on the messages to retain the information.
Laster raised the threshold to "clear and convincing evidence," instead of a "preponderance" of evidence, for Sandberg's affirmative defenses, her arguments and evidence for why she should not be held liable.
The lawsuit originated in 2018 when it was revealed that Facebook allowed access to user data by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that contributed to Donald Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign.
The shareholders sued the company's directors and officers for allegedly harming investors by repeatedly breaching a 2012 FTC consent order to safeguard user data.
Shareholders further claim that the company's board pursued a bigger fine with the FTC in 2019 to shield founder Mark Zuckerberg from personal responsibility. Zuckerberg is set to undergo a second deposition ahead of the trial, per court records.
In 2023, Laster declined to dismiss the lawsuit, referring to it as a "case involving alleged wrongdoing on a truly colossal scale."
Shareholders also sought sanctions against Jeffrey Zients, former President Joe Biden's chief of staff, who used and erased personal emails during his tenure on Meta's board. The judge determined that Zients' messages were less relevant since he joined the Meta board in 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and was not a company officer.