Case Study
Urgent Collection and Discovery for Cross-Jurisdictional Legal Matter in the Gulf Cooperation Council Region
FTI Technology was engaged by a client’s law firm to conduct a highly time sensitive digital forensic preservation and discovery exercise relating to a cross-border legal proceeding following an acquisition in the Middle East region. Counsel needed the team to deliver targeted, defensible collections across numerous systems and organisations, mitigate data privacy concerns and contain costs.
Situation
Within less than 12 hours from receiving the request from the law firm, FTI Technology’s experts arrived in person at one of the company’s locations, prepared to preserve the client’s original estimate of 40 GB of data from multiple systems. After initial scoping discussions with the client’s IT team, FTI Technology determined that the data in scope was much more, at 2.3 TB, spanning five custodians and their mobile devices, as well as several laptops, desktop computers and shared folders.
The collection exercise was complicated by the fact that the client did not have a mature data infrastructure, and because of the recent acquisition, the relevant data sources were spread across existing and legacy systems. The client was also budget sensitive, requiring the team to find the most cost-effective approach without undermining defensibility or thoroughness.
In addition to the challenges around large data volumes, disparate data sources and the short turnaround times required by Gulf Cooperation Council courts, the client was also concerned about data privacy issues and data transfer restrictions, as some of the documents and devices included personal information for the custodians.
Our Role
To complete the exercise within the time frame and cost constraints while maintaining forensic integrity, the team needed to collect and analyse the entire 2.3 TB data set identified and only discard what could be proven as irrelevant to the matter. The team spent 52 hours on the ground at the client site conducting a preservation exercise across systems, with additional support from a remote team operating from FTI Technology’s forensic lab in Dubai.
Once the data was secured within FTI Technology’s centre, the team spent the next 10 days forensically examining, processing, culling, preparing for review and producing the data. The use of an early case assessment database enabled significant reduction of duplicative data from legacy sources, helping to reduce the overall document population set for review.
This effort included:
- Forensic analysis to remove 2.1 TB of data from the relevant set.
- Processing of an additional 200 GB for further culling.
- Early case assessment for 800,000 documents.
- Defensible promotion of less than 5,000 documents for manual review.
Our Impact
Through a strong working relationship with the client and ability to instantly assemble a team to meet the matter’s needs, FTI Technology helped the client defensibly produce all relevant data within tight court deadlines.
FTI Technology’s digital forensics and analytics experts across the Middle East region narrowed a large, complex data set of 2.3 TB to only 200 GB for processing. Through the use of advanced analytics, this was further reduced to only 30 GB of responsive information that was sent for review, ensuring a timely delivery and helping the client to contain costs.