Washington DC - The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused Google of deleting internal corporate communication that was supposed to serve as evidence in the government's antitrust case against the search giant.

The DOJ has asked a federal judge to hold a hearing and to sanction the company over its intentional and repeated destruction of written communications.

Meanwhile, Google reportedly said that it strongly rejected allegations and that it has conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation.

A Google spokesperson said the company has produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world.

In a filing at a Washington federal court, the DOJ said that Google systematically destroyed instant message chats every 24 hours. These messages were required to be saved during the antitrust investigation.

According to the Justice Department, the federal rules of civil procedure required Google to suspend its auto-delete practices in mid-2019, but the company failed to do so. Instead, Google falsely claimed then that it had put a legal hold in place that suspends auto-deletion.

During the US investigation and the discovery phase of the litigation, Google repeatedly misrepresented its document preservation policies that conveyed the false impression that the company was preserving all custodial chats.

"Google's daily destruction of written records prejudiced the United States by depriving it of a rich source of candid discussions between Google's executives, including likely trial witnesses," THE DOJ said in the filing.

In 2020, the DOJ had filed its antitrust lawsuit against Google for using unlawful practices to preserve its dominance over internet search. A second suit, this time related to the tech giant's domination of the digital ad market, was launched last month.