Resource Center
Learn about e-discovery and keep up to date with industry news.
How Life Sciences Organizations are Re-Examining their Compliance Operations and Technology 9/22/2020
FTI Technology Senior Managing Director Rena Verma recently attended the 17th annual Pharmaceutical Compliance Congress. We asked Rena to share the insights she gathered from fellow risk and compliance experts, and her observations on the key issues facing the pharmaceutical industry.
E-discovery in 2020: The Sudden Shift in Our Data Footprint 8/28/2020
The pandemic has affected us all in many ways, personally and professionally. Like any major event, the impact of the pandemic and its ripple effects will be studied for many years to come. This holds true for e-discovery. What used to make up a minor portion of discoverable data has now come to the forefront. Cloud-based communication data is no longer emerging, it has emerged.
In a merger between two healthcare industry companies, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a quick look as part of the second request process. Working under a compressed timeline, outside counsel engaged FTI Consulting to quickly structure a review and stabilize the Brainspace Technology Assisted Review (TAR) model so the parties could determine the risk level of overproducing and prepare the dataset for production to the FTC. A first set of documents had been submitted to regulators, with a second production due just as the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S. and self-isolation orders were being implemented.
As a continuation of its information risk management initiative, and to prevent future legal expenses relating to tape restoration, the client sought to remediate more than 50,000 backup tapes. With FTI’s guidance, the organization planned to destroy any tapes that contained legacy data no longer relevant to present legal hold or records retention obligations. Because the previous remediation and retention effort had solidified the email archive as the “golden source” for email data, any tapes containing email were also considered redundant and in need of disposal.
At a global financial services institution, lack of governance around legal holds and email archives was creating unnecessary risk and data storage costs. When a new member of the in-house legal team joined the organization, eager to refresh the legal hold process and implement a defensible disposal program, she teamed up with the head of litigation and compliance to establish a firm-wide information risk management program.
Given the client’s lack of a dedicated information governance program and decades of operating without a distinct and enforced email policies, a myriad of obstacles stood in the way of establishing a new approach. FTI would first need to understand the client’s email and file share universe, and identify any information within those systems that was subject to existing legal hold obligations. With that a baseline, the team could begin disposing of unnecessary data and prepare the archive for a new retention policy.
Building upon its ongoing partnership with FTI’s experts, the client engaged the team to refresh its legal hold process and serve as its e-discovery operations team. With 80 multinational open matters spanning litigation, compliance cases, data subject access requests (DSARs) under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and regulatory audits in EMEA and APAC, the client faces a range of complex, high-stakes e-discovery challenges.
E-Discovery Predictions Revisited 8/10/2020
So far, 2020 has been…. an “experience." The challenges our industry had braced for, the opportunities we planned to seize, have been suddenly upended in ways we never would have anticipated. At the end of last year, our team shared a few predictions for what was to come in 2020. They weren’t wrong, but the landscape in which they are coming to fruition has changed significantly from what we envisioned. Now, looking at the wake COVID-19 has left behind to date, it’s a good time to revisit those predictions and revise them to match the way the world, the legal industry and e-discovery have changed this year.
As LIBOR Sunsets, Contract Intelligence Takes Center Stage 8/6/2020
What happens when “the most important number in finance” is eliminated? With the impending retirement of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), financial institutions around the world are now faced with that question.
The U.S. division of a global electronics manufacturer was under regulatory orders to establish a records retention schedule and policy in order to bring its operations in compliance with a government monitorship. Outside counsel engaged FTI’s Information Governance, Privacy & Security team to drive the effort and implement a focused retention schedule as well as a policy that would direct retention for all records and information across the client’s U.S. operations.
Q&A: The Journey and Value of Becoming a Relativity Master 7/23/2020
Karimah Campbell, Manager, Relativity's Customer Success Management for FTI sat down with FTI Consulting's Glenn Barden to discuss his process in becoming a Relativity Master, how he sees it benefitting clients, and how it cements FTI's leadership in the industry.
The New Normal for Cartel & Second Request Investigations 7/22/2020
Learn from industry experts on what antitrust legal teams can expect as the “new normal” for investigations in the coming years.
E-discovery in 2020: The Sudden Shift in Our Data Footprint 7/21/2020
The pandemic has impacted us all in many ways, personally and professionally. Like any major event, the impact of the pandemic and its ripple effects will be studied for many years to come. This holds true for e-discovery. In this FTI Report we examine the impact of rapid change in our discoverable data make-up. We take a close-up view of what it means for legal teams---how to adapt, adjust and take action as analyzing rich media as well as fragmented chat strings become key to e-discovery and investigation efficacy.
Q&A: Javier García-Chappell Discusses M&A and Litigation Trends and FTI’s Growing Presence in Spain 7/21/2020
Senior Director Javier García-Chappell joined FTI Technology’s EMEA team late last year, with the focus of expanding the segment’s presence in Iberia. With nearly two decades of experience assisting clients with digital forensics investigations, cyber incident and response cases, e-discovery, data review, investigations, IP disputes and fraud matters, he brings a dynamic background to the firm. In a virtual meet-and-greet with Javier, we asked him about the current issues facing corporations in the region, how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting clients’ data-related challenges and where he sees the practice headed in the coming year.
Schrems II Invalidates Privacy Shield; Where Do Organizations Go from Here? 7/16/2020
In a much-anticipated landmark ruling today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the US-EU Privacy Shield framework as a legal basis for cross-border data transfers between the two jurisdictions.
The Use of Technology in Irish Dispute Resolution and Compliance Monitoring 7/7/2020
In this interview, Chris Dale of The eDisclosure Information Project spoke with FTI Consulting’s Grainne Bryan about the growing acceptance in Ireland that technology must be used to manage data in dispute resolution and compliance monitoring. Ireland has a strict discovery regime, and until the 2016 discovery judgment in IBRC v Quinn, it had not been considered appropriate to use technology to identify discoverable documents. The Quinn judgment changed that and the use of tools like technology-assisted review is now much more common.
Protecting Sensitive Data: Remote Employees, Trade Secrets and Data Loss 6/26/2020
There is no question that the last few months have disrupted the workplace in profound ways. While the implications and timeline of this disruption are only just beginning to be fully realized, it’s clear that the transition to remote work for the vast majority of corporate employees has made data potentially more vulnerable to compromise, leakage and theft. Additionally, the upheaval of the global economy means that workforce shifts or reductions are likely inevitable. How can a corporation protect sensitive data in these circumstances? How do organizations detect and respond to data leakage and/or theft when it happens? And once data is compromised and litigation started, how do businesses put a value on what was lost?
Tips and Tricks to Prepare for Remote Depositions and Witness Interviews 6/24/2020
Worldwide, courts, governments, and legal professionals are striving to recover a semblance of continuity in their work. In the interest of maintaining momentum in important litigation and investigations, and keeping the legal community operational, many depositions, witness interviews, and court proceedings are now moving forward remotely via video conferencing. This guide offers tips and tricks that will help the legal community begin to understand best practices for remote legal proceedings, and adapt to the new normal.
SEC Cyber Report Focuses on Information Governance Best Practices 6/17/2020
In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its most substantial cybersecurity guidance to date. The report, “Cybersecurity and Resiliency Observations,” was the result of examination findings and research from the last five years, much of which was led by the commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE). This is the first comprehensive guidance we’ve seen from the SEC’s cyber unit since it was established several years ago. In many ways, it reads as an examination pamphlet—outlining the essential information security practices and programs a financial services institution will need to have in place to stand up against a government raid, inquiry or investigation.
Preparing For The Shift In Discoverable Data Caused By COVID 6/16/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an unprecedented spike in the use of collaboration applications and the creation of unique cloud source data. Rapid adoption of tools including Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom and other communication platforms is quickly displacing email and changing the footprint of corporate data forever. Learn how to approach reviewing these data types and their exploding volumes as Tim Anderson shares his key considerations for handling the rapid shift to our data foot print.