Case Studies
Queensland Nickel – Digging for Answers Down Under
FTI Consulting was appointed as Administrators and subsequently as Liquidators of Queensland Nickel. Once on the job, various anomalies were discovered which required an investigation jointly led by FTI Consulting’s corporate finance, forensic and e-discovery experts. With the situation quickly deemed one of Australia’s largest corporate failures and Clive Palmer, a larger than life character at the helm, the Administrators with guidance from Strategic Communications professionals launched a proactive communications approach. This addressed the political landscape and various agendas with key stakeholders, including employees and clients of Queensland Nickel, government authorities, creditors and the media.
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.
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.
More than 1.5 billion emails. Terabytes of data scattered among dozens of disparate vendors and outside providers. Thousands of custodians on legal hold. Numerous major legal matters at any given time and millions of dollars in annual e-discovery costs. After decades of an unsustainable but pervasive “save everything” data retention model, a large global healthcare corporation recognized the increasing risk and excessive costs of its existing approach.
FTI Helps Biotech Company Meet Second Request Deadline for Major Merger
A major biotechnology company was seeking Federal Trade Commission regulatory approval of $1.2B merger. The agency issued a Second Request requiring a rapid response. The amount of relevant data to collect and review amounted to several terabytes. Also, there was an additional challenge in that the company’s systems were located primarily in the cloud, with data housed within multiple non-traditional platforms including Slack, Confluence, Workplace by Facebook, Asana, Box and more. The FTI team was able to work quickly with the diverse data sources to target, collect, and review over 12 million documents, helping the corporation to achieve compliance within the deadline set by the FTC.
Responding to Multiple Government Requests to Aid Multi-Billion Dollar Merger
FTI Consulting’s client, one of the largest life sciences corporations in the world, was responding to government requests in the US, Canada and Europe, relating to its multi-billion dollar merger with a US-based corporation. As trusted advisors to the client, FTI’s M&A and competition investigation experts were ready to help.
A large gaming company faced multiple, ongoing matters involving vastly different issues and originating in numerous jurisdictions, yet the same key custodians were relevant to most of the cases. Its legal team understood the excessive costs involved with recollecting and reprocessing the same information for each case and set out to find a solution that would enable the reuse of processed data.
Radiance Visual Analytics Helps Law Firm Answer Government Inquiry
Assess the size and scope of potentially responsive documents within 12 terabytes (TB) of unstructured data in response to a government inquiry in one month. The data set included more than 6 million documents and e-mail from a bankrupt company that had acquired bankrupt companies - leaving investigators with many questions and few starting points.
Continuous Active Learning (CAL) from FTI Technology Aids Baker McKenzie
Baker McKenzie was challenged to quickly and cost-effectively conduct a legal review of more than 200,000 documents to help determine case strategy. The law firm was on the cutting edge of using various technologies and processes – from visual analytics to offshoring legal review to lower-cost review lawyers in other countries – to build in efficiencies and keep e-discovery costs low for clients.
FTI Reduces Reviewable Contract Population by 90% to Beat Data Deadline in Corporate Restructuring
FTI’s contract intelligence team was tapped to assist a global company with its corporate restructuring, requiring scoping of hundreds of thousands of contracts within a six-week timeframe.
How to "Find Facts Fast" in an Internal Investigation
Advanced technology – continuous active learning (CAL) – and a seasoned team of "find facts fast" investigators work in tandem to find key data quickly.
FTI Consulting Showcases Second Request Expertise with RelativityOne
FTI Consulting—a global advisory firm with decades of experience handling the riskiest and most complex matters in e-discovery—has an impressive track record for managing huge, multinational projects. When they applied RelativityOne to their global playbook for Hart-Scott-Rodino second requests, they achieved a speed and scale that exceeded expectations.
A large international financial services organization, with operations throughout Europe, needed to collect, review and produce relevant data to opposing counsel.
Retail Industry Merger Aided by FTI Technology’s Second Request Expertise
Prepare for and respond to antitrust regulators in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Flextronics was countersued by a former business partner and the main evidence for the countersuit was an email allegedly sent to Flextronics that no one had seen before. Sensing that the key evidence may have been fabricated, Flextronics and their Counsel turned to FTI Consulting’s Technology practice for digital forensic expertise.
Forensic Data Collection From Mobile Devices
When our client, a global financial services institution, needed to quickly investigate a suspected security breach which required data from over two hundred of its employees’ mobile phones to be collected and reviewed, our computer forensic experts were able to help.
A leading international real estate information company suspected its data had been stolen and sold by a competitor. FTI Technology’s forensic experts teamed with local law enforcement to conduct a search and seizure, performed forensic imaging on close to 300 computers and devices and documented every step while adhering to the collection laws of the Philippines.
FTI Technology’s Antitrust Expertise Aids in Energy Merger
A large energy industry company planned to acquire a competitor. Given the size of the companies and the likely impact of the deal across the market, the companies anticipated regulatory scrutiny in the form of a Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust “Second Request” investigation.
FTI Technology Helps Build a Better Case for Merger between Two Manufacturing Companies
A large US manufacturing company announced an acquisition of a competing company based in Europe, and faced antitrust investigations from both US and European regulators. The data spanned the globe and a number of formats, including cloud-based Microsoft Office 365.
Defensible Remediation of “Dark Data”
Many companies are wasting money on storage or exposing themselves to data breaches by supporting massive amounts of "dark data." Learn how you can get your dark data under control with this FTI Technology case study of our information governance services.
Respond to a “second request” issued by the federal trade commission in 60 days, and prepare for impending antitrust litigation.
FTI Technology Crafts Solution to Remedy Health Care System’s Data Ills
Understand corporate data residing on various networks and Sharepoint sites to proactively reduce data footprint and reduce future risk and exposure.
Antitrust agency approves usage of e-discovery technique for a Canadian merger case.
FTI Customizes E-discovery Process to Save Entertainment Service $600K
1.7 M documents quickly reduced to 25,000 despite unfavorable search terms.
A proposed merger between telecom giants generated a Hart Scott Rodino Second Request action that resulted in considerable difficulties for the parties involved.
FTI Assists Client in Uncovering Employee Fraud in Europe Through Mobile Investigations Unit
A global law firm contacted FTI to assist in the investigation of unusual activities between employees in two different European offices. Data from key custodians needed to be collected, processed and reviewed so that investigators could determine whether fraud was occurring, and if so, who else was involved or knew about it, how much was involved and what legal action could be taken.
Lovells Reduces E-discovery Costs and Time by 75%
Lovells, the sixth largest international law firm in the world, was tasked with evaluating potential conspiracy and fraud claims arising out of a complex multi-party transaction. During the investigation stage, the firm set out to review thirty-five gigabytes (two million pages) of restored e-mail data under tight staffing and cost controls.
FTI Responds Immediately on Refco Matter
FTI’s Computer Forensic consultants were deployed within minutes to collect, process and analyze complex transactional and document data at the request of Refco’s board and outside counsel. Within just three days of the initial collection, FTI provided an initial report to the board on money transfers and accounts outside of Refco.
JMBM Finds Key Documents Among Millions For Millions
JMBM had very little time to review millions of pages and needed an easy, efficient way to search and manage all of the information required for depositions, motion practice and trial preparation. To find the most relevant documents in a large collection of electronic information within an established four month timeframe, JMBM sought the help of high-powered discovery technology.
Proactive Management: Fortune 1000 Company Takes Control of its E-discovery Process
A large Fortune 1000 company, with billions in revenue, was tasked with implementing an efficient, cost effective, defensible and reasonable document review tool when the company was facing a large-scale litigation. The legal team recognized the need for a system that was sophisticated enough to produce high caliber results yet simple enough to explain to opposing counsel and the court how those results were reached.
Six Weeks, Five Productions and Millions of Documents
How Ringtail & Attenex e-discovery software enabled Bartlit Beck to create five productions in six weeks from millions of documents.