August 30, 2006 – Electronic Discovery Law

Court Rules that Employment of De-Duplication Technology and Use of Search Terms are Reasonable Means of Narrowing Production

Aug 30 2006

In re CV Therapeutics, Inc. Sec. Litig., 2006 WL 2458720 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2006)

In this securities class action, the parties had previously agreed on the entry of a stipulated order governing the discovery of material restored from backup tapes maintained by the defendant. (A copy of the Backup Tape Stipulation is available here.) Subsequently, plaintiffs learned from an undisclosed source that additional backup tapes existed which had not been produced, and moved to compel. The court issued an order dated April 3, 2006, which resolved that dispute, along with several other discovery disputes. (A copy of the court’s April 3, 2006 order is available here.) With respect to the newly discovered backup tapes, the court concluded that defendants had not intentionally hid the existence of the tapes, but that they should have been subject to the terms of the parties’ Backup Tape Stipulation. It continued:

E-Discovery Opens a New World in Drug Litigation

Aug 30 2006

From the August Issue of KPMG Pharmaceutical Insider:

"As most large pharmaceutical companies face dozens of lawsuits at any given time, the rapid growth of electronic documents and e-mail has opened up the new legal frontier of electronic document discovery (EDD).

Drug companies also must take into account sanctions and other penalties. Companies are often subject to sanctions when they do not or cannot produce evidence upon demand, according to Todd Nunn, a partner in the Seattle law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis.

"Companies can really get into trouble for not having adequate policies in place for the retention of electronic documents," says Nunn. "It really affects their ability to respond effectively to litigation." "

Read the entire story here.

Archive - August 30, 2006