A US court has ordered Google to hand over the personal emails of the son of a Russian oligarch as part of a bitter $601 million divorce case. From a report (Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]: Judge Virginia DeMarchi in California told the US tech group to surrender Temur Akhmedov’s emails for use as evidence in a lawsuit brought by his mother, Tatiana Akhmedova, the wife of an ally of President Vladimir Putin. Ms Akhmedova has gone to court in the US and the UK in an attempt to force her ex-husband, Farkhad Akhmedov, to pay the world’s largest-ever divorce settlement. Google said the order was a breach of its customer’s privacy. The divorce case, which is being funded by litigation financier Burford Capital, has led to a legal battle over assets including a helicopter, a private jet and a superyacht called the Luna that used to belong to Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich. Google sought to block the order to give up the emails this week on the basis that to do so would infringe Mr Akhmedov’s right to privacy because he had not given consent to share them. Ms DeMarchi said Google’s concern for the “privacy and security of its account holders’ communications” was “commendable” but ruled the request did not breach the US Stored Communications Act, which governs voluntary and compelled disclosure of emails. The information from the emails will be used to learn whether Temur assisted his father in the fraudulent transfer of assets, and if so, to win a judgment against him, Tatiana Akhmedova said in a filing.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot