IRS erased hard drive, spurning court order.

• Position: E-DISCOVERY

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Despite a court order, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) erased a hard drive belonging to a former top official involved in the agency's much-criticized hiring of law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.

Although a litigation hold had been placed on all materials related to the IRS hiring of the outside firm, the hard drive was erased anyway. The order came in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by Microsoft on the IRS contract with Quinn Emanuel.

According to Law360's report, the IRS informed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in December that it wiped the hard drive in April 2015, after the hold was in place, according to a filing by the DOJ in a Washington federal court. The hard drive belonged to Samuel Maruca, former director of transfer pricing operations at the IRS Large Business and International Division, who helped hire the law firm.

Quinn Emanuel was apparently hired to pursue Microsoft. Even though it had no prior experience handling sensitive tax data, the outside firm was hired at more than $1,000 an hour, according to court records. The initial contract...