Once Too Big to Testify, CEOs Feel Backlash to ‘Apex Doctrine’

In 2022 Mark Zuckerberg escaped being deposed in Washington, D.C.'s data-privacy lawsuit against Meta Platforms Inc. by invoking the so-called apex doctrine, a four-decade-old principle that top corporate officers are generally too busy and important to be forced to give testimony.

But last month Zuckerberg, making the same argument, wasn’t so lucky: a federal judge denied Meta’s bid to block the CEO’s deposition in a copyright suit against the company over its AI model.

The tech titan’s change in fortune reflects a backlash against the apex doctrine by judges swayed by populist arguments that it unfairly favors the powerful. ...