A Delaware judge has sanctioned Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s former COO and board member, for allegedly deleting emails related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.
The decision arises from a case Meta shareholders brought against Sandberg and another former Meta board member, Jeff Zients, late last year. The plaintiffs alleged that Sandberg and Zients used personal email accounts to communicate about issues relating to a 2018 shareholder lawsuit that accused Facebook leaders of violating the law — and their fiduciary duties — in failing to protect users’ privacy.
Plaintiffs also alleged that Sandberg and Zients deleted emails from their personal inboxes despite being instructed not to do so by a court. In a decision Tuesday, the Delaware judge overseeing the case found the accusations to be convincing.
“The defendants disclosed Sandberg’s personal Gmail account, maintained under a pseudonym, that she used to ‘communicate about matters potentially relevant to the claims and defenses in this action,’” the judge’s decision reads. “Counsel’s failure to give a straight answer in Sandberg’s interrogatory responses or when answering plaintiffs’ questions supports an inference that Sandberg was not using an auto-delete function but rather picking and choosing which emails to delete.”
In sanctioning Sandberg, the judge raised the legal standard for Sandberg’s affirmative defense, the defense based on facts other than those in support of the plaintiff’s claim. Now, Sandberg must prove her defense by “clear and convincing” evidence — not merely a “preponderance” of evidence, a burden that’s easier to clear.
The judge has also awarded plaintiffs certain expenses.
At the root of the courtroom battle are allegations that Meta officials violated a 2012 FTC order under which the company agreed to stop collecting and sharing Facebook users’ personal data without their consent. Facebook allegedly later sold the data to commercial partners, including political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, and allegedly removed disclosures from privacy settings that were required under the FTC’s order.
In 2019, Meta agreed to pay the FTC $5 billion to settle charges that the company violated the 2012 order. The company has also paid penalties from regulators in Europe.
