The Road to Sanctions is Paved with Good Intentions

Siddartha Rao

In Sekisui American Corp. v. Hart, Judge Scheindlin issues discovery sanctions, warns counsel that good intentions are not enough

Counsel should take note of the adverse inference instruction sanction Judge Shira Scheindlin issued against the plaintiff in Sekisui American Corp. v. Hart, No. 12 Civ. 3479 (SAS) (FM), (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 15, 2013) (“Sekisui”), an action against former executives for breach of contract. The case signals potential increased risks to litigants who fail to implement proactive hold and preservation policies and should provide guidance to counsel about the need for defensible forensic processes. 

Announcing an Industry-first Integration between EnCase eDiscovery and Box for Defensible Cloud Collection

   

All of us on the EnCase eDiscovery team are excited to announce a new integration between EnCase® eDiscovery and Box, the enterprise cloud content management platform used by 97% of the Fortune 500. Enterprise IT teams have come to rely on Box for cloud storage capabilities that map to their information governance policies and processes. This makes Box the perfect choice for this industry-first integration with our complete e-discovery product, an integration that will let legal teams securely search, collect, and preserve electronically stored information (ESI) located on Box from within EnCase eDiscovery just as easily as with on-premise data.

Now Collect and Preserve Information Managed in Box as Readily as On-Premises Data

Whitney Bouck, the senior vice president and general manager of enterprise at Box, has said that many of their enterprise customers reside within highly regulated industries, so they need a way to meet e-discovery and compliance requirements in a way that does not compromise efficiency and user experience. This makes Box and EnCase eDiscovery ideally suited to offer IT and legal teams a scalable, reliable, and secure way to gain visibility of content stored in Box, to manage access to that content, and to control retention and dispensation.

ACC Annual Meeting 2013: EU Data Privacy and the Godmother of E-Discovery

John Blumenschein

I’m on a plane flying back from this year’s ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, which, as usual, delivered four days’ worth of excellent sessions and food for thought. The hottest topic by far was data privacy, especially in light of the NSA revelations this week.

Globalization and Data Privacy

Almost all of the panel sessions that I attended [e.g., on social media, government investigations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)] touched on the topic of privacy in one way or another. The primary driving force behind this topic’s heat factor, however, is the increasingly global nature of business today.

Data Privacy, Cross-Border E-Discovery, and the Hybrid Solution

Chris Kruse

You could call the United States the epicenter of litigation. It’s an unfortunate, but inescapable, reality that our markets and business cultures drive a preponderance of international business litigation, so much so that we’re the world leader by a mile. The challenge for European and Asian corporations lies in the fact that many have U.S. headquarters or do business with companies here, which is when e-discovery becomes complex due to their national, local, or other pertinent data-privacy laws.

There are dramatic variations in data-privacy laws and requirements across countries, domains, and jurisdictions. For example, in Germany the requirements for collecting employee e-mail and electronic documents within one company may be completely different than those for the company next door, as those requirements are determined by each corporation’s works council.

Judge Grimm Goes Social

Paul W. Grimm, United States District Judge

Bryant Bell

Judge Grimm is a judicial superstar when it comes to e-discovery. His opinions have helped shape our interpretation of digital data as evidence, and he continues to be on the forefront of issues regarding ESI. He has yet again stepped to the plate to address a simmering e-discovery issue. In a recent article he provides thorough analysis and guidance on social media and the evidentiary authentication as an important development for social-media evidence discovery. Judge Grimm succinctly summarizes his article as follows:

Given the ubiquitous use of digital devices to communicate on social media sites, there is little chance that such evidence will cease to be highly relevant in either criminal or civil cases... Hopefully, this Article can shed some light on the nature of the confusion and offer useful suggestions on how to approach the authentication of social media evidence. It is a near certainty that the public appetite for use of social media sites is unlikely to abate, and it is essential for courts and lawyers to do a better job in offering and admitting this evidence. We hope that reading this Article will be their first step toward this goal.