“International Man of Mystery” Sanctioned for Contempt of Court and Intentional Spoliation
TR Investors, LLC v. Genger, 2009 WL 4696062 (Del. Ch. Dec. 9, 2009) (Unpublished)
In this case, defendant Arie Genger was held in contempt and found to have intentionally spoliated relevant documents in violation of a court order following his instruction to his personal IT consultant to wipe the unallocated space of his company’s computer system which his consultant then carried out. Declining to impose terminating sanctions, the court instead ordered that Genger produce 10 documents previously subject to a claim of privilege, that the burden of persuasion as to Genger’s affirmative defenses and counter-claims be raised one level, that Genger was precluded from prevailing on any material factual issue by reason of his testimony alone, and that Genger pay for plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses in the amount of $750,000.