“Like any Ordinary Litigant, the Government Must Abide by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure”
S.E.C. v. Collins & Aikman Corp., 2009 WL 94311 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2009)
In this case, arising from claims of securities fraud, the court addressed questions concerning the government’s discovery obligations in civil discovery. Throughout discovery in the case, several disputes arose regarding the SEC’s production of documents and its failure to perform sufficiently thorough searches for the requested information. Following extensive analysis of the individual issues, the court ultimately concluded that “[w]hen a government agency initiates litigation, it must be prepared to follow the same discovery rules that govern private parties…”