Partial Compliance Is Not Compliance: DOJ Pursues Contempt Over Inadequate Search Warrant Response

On June 9, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had entered into a Stipulation of Dismissal (“Resolution”) with a U.S.-based technology company to resolve civil contempt proceedings arising out of the company’s failure to fully comply with a search warrant.

Taken together, the contempt action, resolution, and accompanying pointed public statements from senior DOJ officials, appear crafted to send a strong signal to technology companies about the importance of appropriate compliance with search warrants and maintaining adequate legal process response tools.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the DOJ’s Criminal Division emphasized that “[t]he Criminal Division pursues technology companies who fail to uphold their lawfully mandated obligations,” adding he was “pleased [the technology company] has belatedly complied and accepted responsibility for the unnecessary costs incurred by the Government in this matter.”

Echoing this same theme, Lesley Woods, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nebraska, warned that “[t]he U.S. Attorney’s Office will not stand for failure to comply with judicially authorized search warrants. We will protect our federal investigations to the fullest extent of the law.”

Warrant Issuance and Contempt Proceedings

As part of a criminal investigation in the District of Nebraska, the government served a search warrant on the technology company in August 2025. The search warrant was issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which authorizes the government to obtain a search warrant to access the content of electronic communications. It is clear from the released DOJ materials that the technology company was not at any time the target of the underlying investigation.

According to the Resolution, the warrant required the technology company “to disclose the [specified] information [related to the target account].” Three days after the warrant was issued, however, the user of the target account deleted it. And because the company had not yet preserved the account, the data at issue was moved to a deletion queue.

The company advised DOJ that, using its standard legal process response tools, the company was unable to identify any responsive records related to the search warrant due to the deletion. The government then followed up and requested that the company conduct additional searches, and in response the company identified and produced some initial responsive records.

Ultimately, and in what is now a cautionary tale for other companies receiving such process, the government responded to that partial production by challenging the adequacy of the technology company’s compliance and requesting that the court issue a show cause order.

The magistrate judge found that the government had demonstrated a prima facie case of civil contempt and referred the matter to a district court judge. After receiving notice of the order, the technology company apparently undertook additional searches, identifying records associated with the target account and turning them over to the government.

The company ultimately agreed to a series of concessions and admissions to resolve the contempt proceedings, including payment of the government’s costs and fees.

Inadequate Legal Response Tools and Resolution

Under the Resolution, the parties agreed that the technology company’s legal process response tools were inadequate in two respects.

• First, the tools “were not designed in a way that permitted members of the company’s Trust and Safety team to locate, preserve, and produce certain content, such as underlying source code or build outputs compiled from source code.”
• Second, the tools “were not designed in a way that permitted members of [the company’s] Trust and Safety team to locate, preserve, and produce content that resided in a deletion queue for approximately 30 days, despite [the company’s] access to and control of the deletion queue.”

The company has since updated its tools and procedures to better preserve data and position itself to respond to future government legal processes.

Key Takeaways

This matter presents several important takeaways for companies and practitioners alike.

• DOJ is willing to bring contempt proceedings for inadequate responses to search warrants, even when the company provides a response. DOJ’s actions here signal that partial compliance is not compliance. Despite the company’s repeated efforts to respond and the relatively short timeframe between when the ECPA warrant was received and when the deletion activity took place, DOJ clearly was of the view that the company’s inadequate legal process tools prevented it from meeting its obligations under the warrant. Companies should treat this as a clear signal that a good-faith effort to respond is not sufficient if the response is incomplete or if data that should have been retained was not.
• DOJ is scrutinizing the adequacy of companies’ internal legal response tools. Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel of the FBI Omaha Field Office stated: “[W]e rely on companies promptly and completely providing evidence in response to lawful court orders. We will continue working with our DOJ partners to aggressively pursue accountability for organizations that fail to uphold their legal responsibilities.” This action, and the accompanying press release, signal that DOJ views internal compliance infrastructure as a distinct area of accountability, not merely as a mitigating factor.
• Companies should proactively audit and update their legal response tools to ensure full compliance with search warrants. In the Stipulation of Dismissal, the technology company acknowledged that its legal process tools were inadequate for locating and preserving content in a deletion queue, and it has since updated its systems and procedures to prevent future failures. This matter underscores the risks of underinvesting in law enforcement response capabilities, and the importance of ensuring legal response tools are sufficient in order to position the company to comply fully with any warrant it may receive in the future.

Outlook

In this action, DOJ has sent a strong signal that companies—especially technology companies that regularly receive legal processes—are expected to ensure that their legal process response tools adequately capture and preserve data that the government may request.  

Morrison Foerster is well positioned to assist organizations in reviewing their current approach and protocols to respond to legal processes, and has been well informed by the potential enforcement and reputational risks highlighted by this matter.

Summer Associate Claire E. Pollard in the Washington, D.C. office contributed to the writing of this article.