A structure settlement company based in Maryland claims they were sued by a competitor for manipulating the search results to make their competitor look bad in Google.
This company is seeking an "SEO expert" to write a legal letter to help them out in court.
He wrote in a Google Webmaster Help thread:
Our company was accused back in late 2011 (by a significantly larger competitor) of manipulating Google search engine results. The only piece of evidence provided by the competitor was a screen captures of Google search results from 2011.The competitor alleges that many of the Google search engine results were defamatory in nature and that the results were being redirected to various website’s that were owned and operated by our company.
We have never been able to duplicate the searches that the competitor states were defamatory and/or results that were redirected. For that reason we have requested a copy of the data from the computer that was used to perform the Google searches in question.
He posted a few of the documents in the case but not the actual complaint letter. So it is hard for me to verify it quickly.
That being said, he is looking to hire an expert SEO who is based in America to help him.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
