US files lawsuit against Google for compensation data

The US Department of Labor said on Wednesday it has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc's Google unit seeking access to the company's compensation data and documents as part of a routine compliance evaluation.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programmes (OFCCP) said it had sought the data about the company's equal opportunity programme in September 2015. The company failed to submit this despite many opportunities, the OFCCP said.

As a federal contractor, Google must agree to permit the federal government to inspect and copy records and information relevant to its compliance with the equal employment laws administered by OFCCP.

The company has provided hundreds of thousands of records over the last year to comply with the OFCCP's current audit, a Google spokesperson told Reuters.      

"However, the handful of OFCCP requests that are the subject of the complaint are overbroad in scope, or reveal confidential data, and we've made this clear to the OFCCP, to no avail," the spokesperson said.

The OFCCP said it would ask the court to cancel all of Google's current government contracts and to debar the company from entering into future contracts if it failed to comply.