In re Actos End Payor Antitrust Litig. (S.D.N.Y. 2022)
Key Insight: On plaintiff’s motion to compel, the magistrate judge ruled that defendant Takeda was to produce “all responsive ESI to Plaintiffs, including earlier-in-time emails.” In its production, Takeda had used email threading by which a party reviews and produced the most-inclusive email in a thread. The Discovery Protocol did not permit that approach. The magistrate emphasized the need for parties to have early discussions regarding ESI to avoid later misunderstandings and disputes. Takeda’s exclusion of lesser included emails from production resulted in the exclusion of metadata associated with the earlier chain emails. The magistrate declined to impose email threading on plaintiffs and recognized that while requiring Takeda to produce earlier-in-time emails would cause additional burden, such burden is not undue since Takeda agreed to the Discovery Protocol and likely has already reviewed many of the emails at issue.
Nature of Case: Antitrust
Electronic Data Involved: Email