in court cases where one side is ordered to release all documents pertaining to a certain event/subject, what stops that party from simply hiding or destroying the evidence?

Question

I understand doing so would be illegal of course but nevertheless if you are a guilty and you know it is it really going to be such a big leap for you to destroy your own incriminating evidence? I might of course be missing something or oversimplifying as well since my only knowledge of the court system is honestly from TV/movies.

In: Other

Answer 1

When big companies get into court cases, the consequences might be millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in damages or fines or something. And yeah, nobody wants their company to have to pay that.

But if you, the CEO or whatever, destroy evidence, and get caught, then **you** go to prison. Not your company, you the actual person go to actual prison. It’s raising the stakes in a way that unscrupulous but sensible corporate officers don’t want to risk.