By Zoe Tillman, From The National Law Journal

Google Inc. has asked a Washington judge to force Jenner & Block and the Motion Picture Association of America to comply with subpoenas for documents that Google says will prove their involvement in “anti-Google” lobbying efforts.

Google, represented by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, filed papers on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia arguing that objections to the subpoenas raised by Jenner & Block, the MPAA and consumer advocacy group Digital Citizens Alliance were “meritless.”

The subpoenas relate to a lawsuit Google filed in December in federal district court in Mississippi against the state’s attorney general, Jim Hood. Google has accused Hood of pursuing investigations and threatening the company with legal action in violation of its constitutional rights. The underlying fight, according to papers filed in the Mississippi case, concerns third-party content online that Hood and others find objectionable—ads for prescription drugs or videos posted on Google-owned YouTube, for instance.

Google wants information on any communications between Hood and lobbyists at Jenner & Block, the MPAA and the Digital Citizens Alliance. Google accuses them of helping to orchestrate Hood’s actions against the company.

“To date, the subpoenaed parties have produced nothing,” Google’s lawyers wrote. Jenner & Block, the MPAA and the Digital Citizens Alliance “have withheld all responsive documents, objecting that they are irrelevant or protected by some unidentified and unsubstantiated privilege.”

Representatives of Jenner & Block, the MPAA and the Digital Citizens Alliance did not immediately return a request for comment. Google’s lawyer at Wilson Sonsini, Veronica Ascarrunz, of counsel to the firm’s Washington office, also could not immediately be reached.

Google’s lawyers rebuffed the privilege claims, saying the subpoenas were narrow and directly relevant to the Mississippi action.

“More fundamentally, the documents are likely to show that the attorney general’s investigation was intended not to uncover supposed violations of Mississippi law, but instead to coerce Google into silencing speech that the subpoenaed parties do not like (such as search results, user-generated content and advertising), in violation of Google’s constitutional rights,” Google said.

Google on Monday also filed papers in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asking that court to enforce subpoenas sent to Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., NBCUniversal Media Inc. and Viacom Inc.

All of the subpoenas at issue in the cases that Google filed this week in Washington and New York were served in March, according to the company’s court filings.

In March, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate in Mississippi denied Hood’s motion to dismiss Google’s lawsuit. Wingate also granted Google’s request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against Hood blocking him from taking action against Google.

Below: Read Google’s motion to compel filed against Jenner & Block, Motion Picture Association of America Inc. and Digital Citizen Alliance.

IMAGE: Google offices in New York City. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/THE NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL

For more on this story & motion go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202728158674/Google-Takes-Jenner-amp-Block-MPAA-to-Court-Over-Subpoenas#ixzz3c0au2QKj