Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%

Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.

Cybersecurity Law & StrategyFeaturesCybersecurityEvidenceLitigationTechnology Media and Telecom

You Won't Know It When You See It: The Challenges of Fabricated Evidence in the Digital Age

By John G. Browning and Jonathan Bailie
April 01, 2022

It was a Perry Mason moment for the Digital Age, and it came on one of the biggest of stages — in the midst of a heated, $1.4 billion lawsuit between two oil giants squaring off in a Fort Worth, TX courtroom in 2015. Moncrief Oil International had sued Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom over an unsuccessful contract to purchase part of a Russian gas field in the late 1990s. Moncrief alleged that it had shared inside information with Gazprom in 2004 about a planned natural gas plant in Texas, and that Gazprom used that information to cut a better deal with Occidental Petroleum, the plant's manufacturer. Gazprom denied receiving any trade secrets, only to have Moncrief and its lawyers confront them with a 2004 PowerPoint slide deck. A single slide from that presentation, containing a chart from an analysis of natural gas value claim costs prepared by a University of Texas geologist, was the supposed "smoking gun."

But when Gazprom's legal team did an Internet search that revealed that the information in the "2004" slide was actually prepared in 2012, the "smoking gun" was exposed as a fabrication. Gazprom moved for sanctions, and Moncrief's lawyers — acknowledging that an "employee made a tragic mistake that created a flawed record" — voluntarily dismissed their billion dollar lawsuit with prejudice. All of this was the result of someone putting the title of the chart in question into Google, and seeing the actual author from 2012 appear atop the search results.

This premium content is locked for Entertainment Law & Finance subscribers only

  • Stay current on the latest information, rulings, regulations, and trends
  • Includes practical, must-have information on copyrights, royalties, AI, and more
  • Tap into expert guidance from top entertainment lawyers and experts

For enterprise-wide or corporate acess, please contact Customer Service at [email protected] or 877-256-2473

Read These Next
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It Image

Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?

Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough Image

There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.

The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later Image

The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.

A Lawyer's System for Active Reading Image

Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.

Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent Trolls Image

With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.