Electronic Discovery And The Revised FRCP

In Dec. 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were revised to—among other provisions—clarify the obligations of parties to turn over emails and other electronically stored records in the event of litigation. Below is some of the most recent Compliance Week coverage related to these new "e-discovery" rules, including state-by-state fallout, and recent precedent-setting decisions emanating from the courts.

Government e-Discovery Tactics Broadened

October 19, 2010

A federal appeals court reversed a landmark data-privacy ruling it issued last year, restoring broad powers for computer search and seizure by government agents.
 

Surveys: Companies Still Struggle With e-Discovery

October 05, 2010

As the use of smart-phones, tablet computers, and other handheld devices explodes across Corporate America, managing and monitoring that enormous volume of “mobile information” can be a herculean task at the best of times. Add the threats of litigation, swiftly changing technology, and increased regulation, and most compliance programs are left flailing.
 

How to Size Up, and Manage, FCPA Investigation Costs

August 17, 2010

Corporations worried about compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—which would be, like, all of them—have a few more glimpses into the costs of investigating and settling FCPA probes that might prove to be useful benchmarks.
 

Shop Talk: Compliance Risks in New Data Technologies

July 07, 2010

Forward-thinking companies know that the next generation of data technology—online social media services, cloud computing, shared data storage centers, and the like—can be valuable business tools if used wisely.
 

Social Media Use in the Financial Industry

June 22, 2010

More and more, the financial services industry is realizing the business benefits of online social media tools—as well as the legal and compliance risks that come along with them.
 

e-Discovery Challenges of Social Media

June 15, 2010

As if complying with current e-discovery rules is not challenging enough, social networking Websites such as Facebook and Twitter are creating new headaches for corporate compliance and legal departments.
 

2010 Compliance Week Guide to e-Discovery

Deloitte April 29, 2010

Download Thought Leadership from Deloitte, Guidance Software and FTI Technology.
 

Report: Few Prepared for e-Discovery

October 20, 2009

Demands for electronically stored information are increasing, but most companies are still coping with those requests on a case-by-case basis, costing them time and money and putting them at risk for sanctions and fines.
 

Weighing the Options of e-Discovery Programs

October 20, 2009

Controlling e-discovery costs while minimizing litigation risks are two of the greatest challenges that in-house lawyers face—challenges that most companies aren’t equipped to handle.
 

Court Ruling Expands e-Discovery Protections

September 22, 2009

Corporate legal departments have caught another break on the e-discovery front, thanks to an appeals court ruling that reaffirms the idea that electronic data seized during a criminal investigation can’t be retained unless it’s in the scope of a search warrant.
 

Maintaining Efficiency, Despite Cutbacks

September 15, 2009

“Doing more with less” sounds like a wise, if unwanted, business policy these days—right up until reckless cost-cutting alienates employees and weakens carefully crafted segregation of duties.
 

Sharing e-Discovery Expense With Opposing Counsel

Salmon Susan September 15, 2009

At the request of subscribers, Compliance Week offers a Remediation Center, in which readers can submit questions—anonymously—to securities and accounting experts. Compliance Week's editors will review all questions and then submit them—confidentially, of course—to specialists who can address the issues. The questions and responses will then be reprinted in a future edition of Compliance Week. Below is one of the Q&As. Ask your own questions by clicking here.
 

The Expanding Landscape of Litigation Holds and Document Production Business White Paper

IBM August 24, 2009

As the courts continue to define a party obligations regarding the preservation and production of electronic discovery and the consequences for deficiencies companies must be proactive to ensure that, if a lawsuit should arise, they can rapidly and efficiently comply with applicable rules and regulations, and manage future litigation in the most cost-efficient manner possible.
 

Cloud Computing Vs. Internal Controls

July 07, 2009

John Bace, a research analyst at the Gartner Group, had just finished a presentation for a corporate client. Discussion shifted to the company’s data storage, and the client’s CIO mentioned he planned on moving much of that data to “the cloud.”
 

Cutting Your e-Discovery Costs

June 30, 2009

One of the biggest beefs companies have with corporate litigation has been the rise in discovery costs, especially as Corporate America has entered the electronic era and creates exponentially more information to search. But many times, it’s the lawyers themselves who make the process more expensive than it needs to be.
 

Preparing for E-Discovery: the litigator and the information professional responsibilities

HP June 01, 2009

Written by The Judge Group, independent governance, risk and compliance specialists, Preparing for E-Discovery, offers practical tips and steps for bridging the gap between Legal and IT to form a united front in managing the e-discovery process.
 

Choosing From a Plethora of e-Discovery Vendors

April 21, 2009

Since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were overhauled in 2006 to address the complicated issues of electronic discovery in civil litigation, the number of e-discovery vendors has more than quadrupled. But not all vendors—while ready and willing—can fit every client’s unique needs.
 

Podcast: Setting Scope of e-Discovery

April 17, 2009

Podcast: Setting Scope of e-Discovery
 

eDiscovery Rules for Document Preservation

March 03, 2009

Technology is often key to helping any business endure a government investigation or lawsuit—and can just as often be the company’s undoing if it navigates the perils of e-discovery poorly.
 

Fed Rule of Evidence 502 Affects e-Discovery

February 03, 2009

Some early court rulings’ decisions applying new federal rules about accidentally disclosing privileged legal information are giving corporate legal departments new glimpses into best practice for electronic discovery.
 

Tough Times for Corp. Legal Departments

February 03, 2009

A new study of corporate legal departments confirms what most general counsels already know: 2009 is going to be a rough year.
 

e-Discovery Challenges in Criminal Probes

December 23, 2008

The rules of legal discovery in the Internet and e-mail era are rapidly developing for civil litigation. But in the realm of criminal investigations—where the stakes can be far higher—the law still leaves corporations flailing without any way to protect electronic data, even if it belongs to innocent third parties.
 

Activists Rally the Troops for Say-on-Pay

November 18, 2008

Shareholder votes on executive compensation packages hit a plateau this year, after a stunning ascendancy in 2006 and 2007. Corporate America, however, should brace itself for another resurgence in 2009.
 

Embracing 502, the New Hope for Attorney-Client Privilege

September 30, 2008

Corporate lawyers have high hopes for a new federal rule that provides certainty around attorney-client privilege and work product protection waiver issues.
 

Who’s Coming and Going in the GRC World

September 16, 2008

Compliance Week regularly tracks various personnel moves, board appointments, product releases, customer wins, and industry gossip in the corporate governance realm. Submit announcements to Compliance Week’s Jaclyn Jaeger.
 

Compliance Week Adds Features, Improves Website

September 09, 2008

Welcome to the new Compliance Week. Expanded and redesigned at the request of subscribers, Compliance Week now offers a host of new features and improved offerings. Among our most notable changes are the following:
 

States Moving to Adopt e-Discovery Rules

May 06, 2008

First came the long march to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and bring them into line with the Internet age. Now comes the chore of herding all 50 states into the same age as well.
 

Qualcomm Mess Raises e-Discovery Issues

Taub Stephen April 08, 2008

Qualcomm Corp. has started a fight with its own lawyers and IT consultants over one of the thorniest questions about legal discovery in the electronic age: Who’s responsible when a company fails to turn over electronically stored information?
 

Are You Missing 69 Percent of Your Information During Discovery?

FTI Consulting March 19, 2008

In the past few years, the topic of electronically stored information, or ESI, has become red hot in the legal community. Most of the attention to date has centered primarily on email and electronic documents—documents that fall into the general category of unstructured data—and how to deal with such data during the electronic discovery phase of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation.
 

Best Practices for Document Destruction

January 08, 2008

All right, it’s now 2008. Do you know where all your data is?
 

e-Discovery Rules at One Year: How Much Help?

January 02, 2008

A little more than a year after their adoption, changes to federal rules for civil litigation have provided companies some answers on how to navigate discovery in the electronic age, but they have raised just as many questions.
 

Editorial: Compliance Week Names Matt Kelly Editor; Scott Cohen Remains Publisher

January 01, 2008

When I founded Compliance Week with my business partner Frank Hertz, we never dreamed that compliance would get so big or complex. Clearly, risk and compliance issues were becoming increasingly important—our coverage went from focusing on Regulation Fair Disclosure (remember the days when that was the big compliance issue?) to Sarbanes-Oxley faster than you could say “over-regulated.” But who could have predicted the compliance web in which we’re currently entangled; today’s requirements read like an alphabet soup of acronyms and standards: AS5. FIN 48. FCPA. FAS 157. 409A. ICFR. IFRS. FRCP. XBRL.
 

Records Management: A Governance Crisis?

Judd Elizabeth December 04, 2007

A new survey says that only 7 percent of senior executives and board directors consider records management a top issue for their company—compared to a whopping 40 percent of law departments on the front lines of litigation and growing demands for speed access to relevant electronic data.
 

e-Discovery Impact on Global Business Enterprises

CA November 27, 2007

In December 2006, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were modi ed (the “Amended Federal Rules”), adding several provisions addressing discovery and production requirements for electronically stored information (“ESI”) that directly impact global companies.
 

Auditing Records Management

November 06, 2007

In a column at the start of the year, I contended that auditing records management programs should be one of your top dozen priorities for 2007. This month’s column explores that important subject in more detail.
 

NY Court Expands Protections for e-Data

October 23, 2007

The problem of departing employees taking electronic data with them when they leave has troubled companies for more than a decade. A recent court decision now gives them another weapon to seek a remedy for the theft of electronic and other intangible data.
 

Report: Records Management Still Sloppy

Dunn Christine October 16, 2007

A new report finds that despite the growing importance of records management to prevent snafus in corporate litigation, only one-third of companies believe they have a comprehensive records management program.
 

Records Management at Forest City

September 18, 2007

Whether real estate developer Forest City is building monolithic skyscrapers or mixed-use developments with thousands of homes, the projects all spring from common origins—in contracts, work documents, permits, engineering drawings, and correspondence that consumed, well, forests of paper.
 

Editorial: How I Learned To Take IFRS Seriously, And Why You Should Too

September 01, 2007

I got scolded by the SEC’s John White once. Seriously: I got a verbal slapdown from a regulator—and I think I deserved it.
 

Avoiding Murphy’s Law: Tips for Boards and Management

L. Pitt Harvey August 28, 2007

At Compliance Week’s annual conference in June, former SEC Chairman and Compliance Week Columnist Harvey Pitt delivered the closing keynote address. In this edition, we reprint his speech.
 

Report: ERM Sinking Into Directors’ Heads

August 21, 2007

Corporate board members are devoting more time to enterprise risk management these days and taking a more aggressive approach to make headway on the sometimes-elusive goal, according to a new survey.
 

Who’s Coming and Going in Governance

August 21, 2007

Compliance Week regularly tracks various personnel moves, board appointments, product releases, customer wins, and industry gossip in the corporate governance realm. Submit announcements to Compliance Week’s Jaclyn Jaeger.
 

Who’s Coming And Going In Governance

July 31, 2007

Compliance Week regularly tracks various personnel moves, board appointments, product releases, customer wins, and industry gossip in the corporate governance realm. Submit announcements to Compliance Week’s Jaclyn Jaeger.
 

Courts Start Making e-Discovery Decisions

, Compliance Week by July 03, 2007

Corporate lawyers are starting to get their first glimpses into how federal courts will interpret new rules for “e-discovery” in civil litigation.
 

Courts Start Making e-Discovery Decisions

July 03, 2007

Corporate lawyers are starting to get their first glimpses into how federal courts will interpret new rules for “e-discovery” in civil litigation.
 

Ethics Online: What A Good Internet Policy Looks Like

June 12, 2007

OK, compliance and ethics directors: what would you do if your e-mail monitoring system uncovered a romantic relationship between two employees?Or what would you do if you discovered an employee was using his office computer to post corporate information—though completely banal—on his personal blog?
 

Who’s Coming And Going In Corporate Governance

June 05, 2007

Compliance Week’s weekly review of personnel moves, board appointments, product releases, customer wins, and industry gossip in the corporate governance realm.
 

Adding Compliance Solutions To ERP Systems

Dunn Christine June 05, 2007

Companies invest a lot of time and money in enterprise resource planning software—and yet, at the end of the day, those weighty ERP systems still don’t necessarily fulfill all a company’s needs when it comes to financial reporting requirements, such as those outlined under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
 

Electronic Discovery: Know What You Have Before Your Adversary Does

Duane Morris March 07, 2007

Excellent, brief Alert from the law firm Duane Morris warns that failure to understand the technological landscape at the onset of litigation "may result in the loss or alteration of important evidence, impairing the ability to prosecute or defend against claims."
 

eDiscovery Update: Data Security Breach Notification

Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz February 19, 2007

Quick four-page client alert from the law firm of Vedder Price on the topics of electronic discovery, information management, and the loss of customer data.
 
 Subscribe to the RSS for this page  [view all our RSS feeds here]

Compliance Week Podcasts ...

Every week we chat with leading thinkers in compliance, auditing, risk management, public policy and more. These short (10-15 minutes) interviews are free to all. Follow Compliance Week podcasts on iTunes.

Compliance Week LinkedIn Group

Compliance Week now has a companion group on LinkedIn, where members can network and discuss the compliance and governance news of the day. Open to all compliance professionals, free to join.

Survey of the Week


Deloitte is conducting their annual Look Before You Leap: Managing Risks in Global Investments survey to better understand the approaches companies are taking to address compliance and integrity-related risks in emerging markets. 

Thought Leadership

The Risk Intelligent CCO
Sponsored by Deloitte

FCPA Compliance
Sponsored by Kroll Advisory Services

Upcoming Webcasts

ERP Security "Health Check"
Sponsored by ControlPanel GRC

Financial Continuous Monitoring
Sponsored by Infor

Event of the Week

World Class Financial Assurance
Sponsored by Infor