Pause in Google contempt case

A judge has ordered a halt on proceedings against the tech giant after it failed to take down a series of damning reviews.

Contempt proceedings against Google have been put on hold in the NSW Supreme Court. Picture: AP

A NSW Supreme Court judge has ordered a temporary halt on criminal contempt proceedings against US tech giant Google after it failed to act on court orders take down a series of damning Google Reviews against a prominent Sydney businessman.

The reviews, described by the man’s lawyers as “absolutely hideous” and “truly beyond the pale”, prompted the Supreme Court to direct the court registrar bring contempt charges against Google on Friday, 25 hours after the orders had been made.

The contempt proceedings have flagged a major showdown between the Supreme Court and the global behemoth, but the legal face off was today put on pause after Google LLC challenged the orders as “ambiguous and uncertain”.

Google LLC’s lawyer, Jeremy Giles, SC told NSW Supreme Court judge Des Fagan Google had also only been given 25 hours to respond to the court orders which had been issued “very early in the morning on the 4th of July’” California time, which is a major public holiday in the United States.

“This is important to my client, we are a very large corporation and we regard ourselves as very reputable corporation,” Mr Giles told the court.

“Its very unfortunate for my client for obvious reputational reasons and for other more serious reasons.”

Susan Crysanthanou, barrister for the Sydney businessman, said her office had made multiple phone calls and issued emails to Google’s LLC in California and Google Australia alerting them to court orders on July 4 and again on July 5.

Google Australia, she said, had also sent a lawyer to sit in the back of the court when the first court orders were made to take down the Google Reviews were made on July 4, yet the company had yet to provide any evidence on why it had ignored the court or failed to appear.

“Your honour the defendant is one of the most powerful companies in the world and it destroys reputations,’ Ms Crysanthanou said

“It seems an interesting proposition that my learned friend stands here and talks about a public holiday in the United States. On last count his client had 98,000 employees.”

Handing down his decision, Supreme Court Justice Des Fagan said Google had since taken down the offending reviews. He said holding off the contempt investigation and prosecution was “strongly preferable to simply allowing the registrar and (NSW) crown solicitor to press on at considerable expense” when it could be a waste of time.

He said Google had argued the first court orders on July 4 to remove the reviews had raised “significant issues” that needed to be resolved first.

The parties will return to court on July 26 to argue over whether the contempt proceedings should continue.