Duplicate Submission and request for withdrawal

A paper was submitted to journal A and received a ‘revision’ decision. At some point following this decision, the authors emailed the journal to request withdrawal, citing inconsistencies in their data and subsequent conclusions. A search of the literature showed that the same paper (with the same authors) was published in journal B the day before the withdrawal request. Clearly, the authors waited for the acceptance before withdrawing from journal A. Journal A contacted journal B to explain the duplicate submission, and that the authors requested withdrawal, citing doubts in the validity of their paper’s data.

Questions for the COPE Forum

• Should journal B retract the paper on these grounds?
• What happens if journal B does not receive a response from the authors or their institution?