MVA Litigation

In a noteworthy endorsement of international arbitration March 30, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued what may be the second watershed decision within six months in the use of 28 U.S.C. § 1782, “Assistance to foreign and international tribunals and to litigants before such tribunals”. The Fourth Circuit panel reversed the district court to rule that section 1782(a) may be employed to obtain testimony and other evidence in aid of private arbitration held outside the United States.[i]

The course of federal civil litigation will take a turn on December 1, 2015, with pending amendments to several rules governing discovery, case management, and the preservation of electronically stored information (“ESI”) set to take effect absent intervening Congressional action. The pending amendments are nearly five years in the making, flowing from the Conference on Civil Litigation sponsored by the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules at the Duke University School of Law in 2010 (“Duke Conference”). Through the Duke Conference and the amendment ...

Over the course of the past two years, litigants have faced significant changes to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that are critical to navigating the federal litigation landscape, include rules governing subpoenas, discovery, case management, and preservation of electronically stored information (“ESI”). We previously discussed the long-awaited changes to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45 that were implemented on December 1, 2013 to streamline the use of subpoenas in federal civil actions (read our Rule 45 post). The wider reaching August 2013 Proposed Amendments ...

FEBRUARY 15TH DEADLINE TO COMMENT ON PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO FEDERAL RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE:  In August 2013, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules published proposed amendments to the Fed. R. Civ. P. which address the challenges of managing the scope of discovery in the digital age and the attendant consequences for a party’s failure to meet its discovery obligations. The proposed amendments impose limitations on discovery and spoliation sanctions. Read my previous post for details.  Comments are due February 15, 2014. You may submit comments online.  Posted by Tony Lathrop ...

            This year several proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Civil Rules”) are under consideration.  In a previous post, we highlighted the most recent proposed amendments to the Civil Rules which focus on discovery limits and spoliation sanctions and were published for public comment by the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules on August 15, 2013 (the “Discovery Amendments”).  On December 1, 2013, some of the most long-awaited changes to the Civil Rules will take effect – the proposed amendments to Rule 45, which governs the use of ...

            On October 2, 2013, the Local Rules Committee of the Federal District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina announced that it has published for comment proposed amendments to the Local Civil Rules and Local Criminal Rules.  The proposed amendments to the Local Civil Rules include the addition of new rules and changes to some existing rules, including LR 5.4, 7.1(a), 7.3(i), 7.6, 15.1, 16.2, 16.3, 26.2, 37.1, 54.1, 72.4, 83.7, 83.9e(i), 83.10h(d), 83.11, and 103.2(b).  The only proposed amendment to the Local Criminal Rules includes the incorporation under LCrR 57.1 of ...

            The costs that parties incur in the broils of litigation have been on the front burner in recent years, with the temperature rising. In 2010, the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules sponsored a Conference on Civil Litigation at the Duke University School of Law (the “Duke Conference”) to address possible solutions for reducing the costs of civil litigation, particularly with respect to discovery.  We also have seen many reported cases over the past few years that have attempted to strike a balance between the obligations to preserve and produce information ...

            This year we have seen state and federal courts issue opinion after opinion ordering sanctions against parties, and sometimes their counsel, for failing to adequately preserve electronically stored information relevant to litigation.  I moderated a discussion at the November 2012 Network of Trial Law Firms Litigation Management CLE seminar regarding critical issues that are keeping in-house counsel awake at night – concerns regarding discovery sanctions issued against in-house and outside counsel were high up on the list, coupled with concerns about the spiraling costs of ...

   The duty to preserve evidence in the face of impending litigation is a burden that befalls litigants and potential litigants.  We recently discussed the impact of the decision in Zubulake v UBS Warburg LLC 220 FRD 212 (S.D.N.Y. 2003) on the determination of when the duty to preserve attaches with respect to the preservation of electronic documents.  See my previous blog here addressing the reasonable anticipation standard established by Zubulake and as applied in state court in VOOM HD Holdings LLC v. EchoStar Satellite L.L.C., 2012 NY Slip Op 00658 (Jan. 31, 2012).  The duty to preserve ...

In the age of e-discovery, businesses across the nation have been challenged with seemingly insurmountable hurdles when facing litigation.  The costs of conducting e-discovery can be extraordinarily high, given the volumes of data often at issue in complex commercial litigation.  The recent case VOOM HD Holdings LLC v. EchoStar Satellite L.L.C., 2012 NY Slip Op 00658 (Jan. 31, 2012) decided by the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division admonishes potential litigants that mishandling the e-discovery process comes at a much higher price.  Despite protests from litigants ...