7 Legal Cases Driving Global Information Governance

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7 LEGAL CASES driving global

information governance The price of not having good information governance

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WHY DO YOU WANT to have your information governed?

•  Lawsuits happen

frequently in the business world.

•  Even if storage is cheap ($0.20/GB), discovery costs ($3,500/GB) are not.

Here are the legal cases to prove it….

Why didn’t you say it would

cost $3,500

to discover/review

that 1 GB of storage?

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THIS CASE ESTABLISHED the framework of ESI retention:

•  Companies have to

comply with electronic data preservation and production.

•  When a party is

subject to litigation it must suspend document destruction and put a litigation hold in place.

ZUBULAKE V. UBS WARBURG is a case heard between 2003 and 2005 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

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Zubulake v. UBS Warburg

Laura Zubulake sued UBS over gender discrimination. She requested key information that was archived in emails.

When the discovery took place back up tapes were missing and some emails had been deleted. Zubulake moved for sanctions.

The court concluded that UBS acted willfully, the jury was instructed to assume the deleted emails were detrimental to the case. Costs were reimbursed to Zubulake, she also received $9.1 million in compensatory and $20.2 million in punitive damage.

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Apple v. Samsung

•  $2.5 billion was on the line….

Yes BILLIONs!

•  Samsung did not turn off it’s auto-deletion of emails every two weeks.

•  Jury was going to be instructed to

assume deleted emails were potentially detrimental to Samsung’s case.

•  BUT….

On April 2011, Apple sued Samsung over patent infringement.

Good to have backup

emails, isn't it?

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Apple v. Samsung

As it turns out …. •  Apple was doing the same thing

by sending automatic notices asking employees to reduce the size of their email accounts.

So… both parties agreed not to instruct the jury to assume the deleted emails were detrimental to the case.

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Wrong, according to the next case.

But don’t know where it is….that is not sancAonable, right?

So let’s say

you know

you have the

data.

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Residential Funding Corp. v. DeGeorge Fin. Corp

•  RFC did not produce requested emails in time for a trial but the court ruled in favor RFC. Not so fast….

•  The Second Circuit Court overturned

the initial order indicating that a delay in producing electronic data (negligence) is sanctionable. Therefore, RFC lost the case.

•  RFC could have had the information

requested on time if their information was governed.

On January 4, 2001, the parties held a discovery planning conference and agreed for it be completed by August 1, 2001.

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915 Broadway Associates v. Paul Hastings

•  915 issues a legal notice to employees instructing them to save files and not delete emails.

•  But compliance was not monitored and automatic deletion was not stopped.

•  Crucial files were deleted (spoliation).

•  The complaint was dismissed and Paul Hastings' motion for spoliation sanction is granted.

•  A $20 million dollar case is thrown out due to spoliation.

915 Broadway alleges that Paul Hastings committed malpractice.

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Leon vs. IDX Systems Corporation

•  Leon’s action was dismissed and he was sanctioned $65,000 for spoliation.

•  Why?

•  He had deleted 2,200 files on the company’s laptop after he was instructed not to.

Leon, an employee of IDX, complained over accounting irregularities and was fired soon after. He filed a complaint saying he was fired in retaliation.

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Sekisui v. Hart

•  Sekisui was asked to put its electronic files on litigation hold but did not inform its email administrator until 15 months after the claim.

•  Deletion was considered intentional and Sekisui was sanctioned.

•  Sekisui was ordered to pay $83,408.36 in attorney’s fees.

Sekisui America Corp. sued Hart, the former president of America Diagnostics, alleging he provided misleading information in the merger of the two companies.

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Wachtel, Scharfman, McCoy v. Health Net, Inc.

•  The way Health Net, Inc. was governing its data had a really strong reaction from the court.

The court concluded… •  Health Net, Inc., engaged in

discovery abuse, that included spoliation of email and other electronic evidence.

•  Health Net, Inc. lost and had to pay up to $261 million to settle the three lawsuits.

This case involves three separate cases that were settled under one decision and took 7 years in litigation to reach that decision.

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TAKE NOTE!

•  Govern your information: that way it can be retrieved in a timely manner and you are not reviewing old documents.

•  Don’t just instruct a legal hold, make sure key documents are not being deleted.

•  Suspend automatic deletion when litigation is pending.

Or pay the price of not managing your data in litigation.

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WHERE IS INFORMATION GOVERNANCE IN Your CORPORATE AGENDA?

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About RSD RSD is the global leader in Information Governance. Our purpose-built platform, RSD GLASS®, makes it easy for companies in highly-regulated industries to solve the complex problem of what information they should keep and what information they are allowed to delete with its policy management and enforcement engine. It is the only platform that orchestrates and maintains Information Governance while keeping information in its place.

RSD solutions for information governance, output management, and document archiving and retrieval support millions of users worldwide. Our products and services are offered around the globe – both directly and through strategic business partners. To learn more, go to www.rsd.com

CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION! [email protected] /www.rsd.com