[alanctgardner2]

Likely it was a subpoena compelling them to provide the emails. I believe in Apple v Samsung there was a matter of Samsung failing to retain some emails which were relevant. In that case, the jurors were instructed to treat the deleted emails as incriminating.

Edit: I was on my mobile and I couldn't confirm this. In fact, as the peer comment said, when it refers to the litigants the process is discovery. A subpoena is required to compel a third party to testify or provide documents. Discovery is normally just a give and take, unless one party objects and the court intercedes.

[makomk]

Actually, I believe in the end the court didn't give any kind of jury instruction about the deleted e-mails in Apple vs Samsung. Apple's contention was that Samsung should've anticipated that they were about to be sued and retained any relevant e-mails even before the lawsuit had been filed, and the judge sided with Apple on this until it turned out Apple hadn't bothered to retain their own e-mails from that period either despite having actual firm knowlege they were going to file a lawsuit.