Facebook Can Claim Work Product in App Developer Investigation

Materials generated by counsel as part of Facebook’s highly publicized “App Developer Investigation” are covered by the work product doctrine, and the social media platform is entitled to withhold information that would reveal counsel’s undisclosed strategic decision-making, Massachusetts’ highest court ruled Wednesday.

The Massachusetts Attorney General sought the materials as part of its own investigation focused on whether the company “misrepresented the extent to which it protected or misused user data,” the court said.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reversed a lower court ruling that would have required Facebook to give the state attorney general’s office documents “sufficient to ...