Law and technology

More information is coming soon on New Zealand’s e-discovery solution - the electronic discovery solution developed right here in New Zealand to support the new discovery rules taking effect on 1 February 2012 (see this earlier post).

One feature is the ability to safely redact PDF documents directly in a web browser.

Redaction is increasingly important in New Zealand civil litigation, given the volume of documents and the propensity for sensitive and/or privileged information to be mixed with other discoverable information. The High Court Rules (current and new) allow redaction of certain information on the grounds of confidentiality and/or privilege. Conditions can be proposed by the disclosing party to protect confidential information – for example, the provision of certain documents (redacted or not) may be made on an “attorney’s eyes only” basis (to adopt the US parlance; in practice it often extends to experts too). Other parties can challenge the proposed restrictions, however this requires them to bring an application to do so, and in practice such issues can usually be resolved without the Court’s intervention.

The new High Court Rules will generally mean that documents must be redacted electronically, in PDF format. In practice, there are 3 key challenges to doing so:

1. Making it easy – ideally, the lawyer will be able to make their own redactions directly on each PDF while viewing it anywhere and any time, without the need to install separate standalone software and without any fuss. In particular, this avoids the  inefficient and obsolete process of printing documents, manually redacting them, and then re-scanning them.
2. Making the redactions permanent and secure – there are many real-world examples of unsafe, or non-permanent, redactions, where an apparently redacted document still allows the underlying text to be easily retrieved (read about a recent example – by a judge! – here).
3. Handling duplicates – there is no point redacting one version of a document, only to have a duplicate produced in original form.

Safe and easy PDF redaction (via the browser) is one of the features of the New Zealand developed e-discovery solution that will be announced soon. Stay tuned for more information in coming weeks.

A pre-announcement:

New High Court Rules (and District Court Rules) promoting the use of electronic discovery come into force on 1 February 2012. Key features of the “default” regime under the new rules include the following:

• Discovered documents must be exchanged electronically.
• Parties must provide a standardised list of discovered documents.
• Documents must be provided in PDF format (unless not possible for particular file types), with the document number as the filename.
• Native files must be provided if requested.
• Parties must take reasonable steps to exclude duplicates.
• Emails and attachments are to be listed separately but sequentially on the document list.

These changes reflect the ever-increasing volume of data (in particular, electronic data) in modern litigation, and the need to effectively and efficiently handle the discovery process.

A New Zealand solution

This new regime requires a new solution. Stay tuned for an announcement of a new web-based electronic discovery system developed right here in New Zealand, that supports the new rules on electronic discovery as well as providing early case assessment and detailed review capabilities. This system has been locally developed over the past several years.

Key features include:

• New Zealand designed and developed system, cognisant of the new High Court Rules on electronic discovery
• Fully managed, web-based solution – no software to install or maintain, and can be accessed on any computer, notebook, or tablet
• Handle projects ranging from a few dozen, up to hundreds of thousands of documents
• Securely access, review and upload project documents anywhere, anytime
• Track discoverability, privilege, confidentiality, and other document attributes
• View common document formats in any standard web browser without the need to install Office software
• Powerful search and analysis capabilities across the document repository
• Generate discovery lists and electronic bundles of documents (native format or converted to PDF, stamped with document numbers)
• Automated handling and de-duplication of Outlook email archives and common document types
• Single-user or collaborative multi-user options (including the ability for clients to upload their own documents)
• Fully locally supported
• Customisable by a local development team
• And much more!

Check back for more information in coming months.

(features described are subject to change before the system is publicly launched)

The Rules Committee of the High Court has released its final draft of new rules on civil discovery. This is the final stage of a long-running process to update the often troublesome rules relating to discovery, in particular electronic discovery. The latest rules are available here (pdf).

Background

For those who are lucky enough not to have been involved in civil litigation, discovery is a legal process that requires each side in the case to “discover” all relevant documents to the other side – the legal equivalent of laying your cards on the table. That doesn’t just mean documents that support your case – parties are also obliged to produce damaging documents. There are only limited grounds for refusing to disclose documents, such as legal privilege, and even then certain steps must be followed.

Unfortunately, discovery has become often a very difficult and time-consuming (and therefore expensive) part of modern commercial litigation. The general rules of discovery were laid down in the nineteenth century, when most documents could only be produced by hand or at significant cost. It was also a lot more obvious what a “document” was back then – usually ink on paper.

In recent years there has been an explosion in the amount, and type, of documents in business. The most obvious are computer documents (Word docs, spreadsheets, etc) and email. Most significant businesses are now heavily reliant on electronic communications. Documents still include paper files, faxes, and accounts, but also include modern documents such as databases, text messages, and even tweets, and huge amounts of documents can be created during the course of an ordinary day. As a result, parties to litigation are often required to handle huge volumes of documents. In large litigations I am involved in, it is common to have tens of thousands of emails and other electronic documents in play.

Reform

The discovery reform aims to modernise the rules to improve the discovery process for the benefit of litigants, and better reflect the modern realities of business and society. I have submitted on the first draft rules, and note a few highlights and changes in the proposed final draft:

• Parties must co-operate on discovery (oh, were it always that way!) and ensure “technology is used efficiently and effectively”. (8.2)
• Parties “must take all reasonable steps to preserve [relevant documents]”, including ensuring that “documents in electronic form which are potentially discoverable [be] preserved in readily retreivable form even if they would otherwise be deleted in the ordinary course of business” (8.3). This is a significant and powerful rule that imposes an express duty to preserve electronic records (see below for more details). When a dispute arises, it may be a prudent strategy to put the other party on express notice of this duty.
• The rules introduce two types of discovery – standard and tailored (8.6). Thankfully, the proposed threshhold of 200 documents for tailored discovery (previously called non-standard discovery) has been dropped. Even small commercial litigations tend to have far more than 200 documents these days!
• Parties must undertake a “reasonable search” for electronic documents, which includes some room for negotiation over whether it is or isn’t unduly costly to do so in certain cases (8.14).
• Original native files (that are discoverable) are to be provided on request (8.27(4)). While I had proposed clearer language here, the rule is still to that effect.
• Documents are to be exchanged by way of PDF where possible (sched 9, clause 1).
• The proposed requirement of chronological ordering is not mandatory – a different order may be applied if more convenient (sched 9, clause 2).
• Exchanged documents should be DRM free (well, it’s not quite as explicit as I had proposed but it’s a start) (sched 9, clause 6.8).

Duty to preserve documents

The most notable change for non-lawyers is the duty to preserve evidence, in particular electronic records. Unlike in the US, there is no tort of “spoilation of evidence” in New Zealand. There can still be serious consequences for destroying evidence, but the threshhold is unclear and there has not generally been a positive duty to preserve documents for the purposes of potential litigation.

The proposed rule 8.3 will change that. It requires a person who knows that a document is “reasonably likely” to be relevant to a legal dispute (whether or not any dispute has arisen) to take “all reasonable steps to preserve that document”. The term “knows” here is likely to be taken as meaning “ought reasonably to know”.

In particular, the rule will require that potentially relevant electronic documents “must be preserved in readily retrievable form even if they would otherwise be deleted in the ordinary course of business”.

The most obvious type of document here is email. Many businesses let their users fully manage their own emails. If a user deletes an email from their inbox, it may be impossible to recover. This new rule will require prudent businesses to ensure there are proper processes in place for retaining important emails. Under the new Limitation Act, it may be necessary to ensure retention of some records for up to 15 years, which is the duration of the new law’s “longstop” limitation period.

The proposed rules do not set out a penalty for failing to preserve documents, but a Court may make adverse findings, or even impose more serious sanctions such as contempt of court, against a party who fails to preserve documents.

While it is far from Sarbanes-Oxley, this change is welcome and good for the interests of justice.

The rules are expected to be implemented by early 2012.

My firm is currently representing a New Zealand software vendor in a litigation in the US against a large, US-based multinational vendor. Like much commercial litigation these days, this has involved processing huge amounts of data to complete the legal “discovery” process. In this case, it has involved sending gigabytes of discovery data back and forwards across the Pacific, as well as within New Zealand and other locations around the world.

Where possible, we have been using secure online services to perform these large transfers (security obviously being a key requirement). However transmitting batches of files of 6+ GB (not unusual for major litigations these days) to California has highlighted New Zealand’s lag in high speed internet connectivity. In particular, the “A” in ADSL comes to the fore, as it means upload speeds from our office are considerably slower than download speeds. Last week it took about 24 hours to transmit 4.2 GB of data to the US, a rate of 210 MB per hour, or about 48 K per second. Plus, it ate up our monthly usage cap.

For some data, it was simpler to have it FedEx’d across on DVD and portable hard-drive.

We have also experienced the sad state of affairs where it has literally been quicker and easier for our client (in Auckland) to jump in his car and hand-deliver DVDs of data to us (also in Auckland), than to transmit it via the internet. Admittedly we are talking about gigabytes worth of data, but that is not unusual these days.

So I will add international litigation to the growing list of “reasons why New Zealand businesses need high-speed, reliable, uncapped internet connectivity”.

Not a never ending licence

A UK court has ruled, and a customer found out the hard way, that what was described as a “perpetual” software licence was not a “never ending” licence. In BMS Computer Solutions v AB Agri Ltd (UK High Court, 10 March 2010) the customer was granted a “UK-wide perpetual licence” for a program. However, the contract granting the licence also required the customer to keep buying support from the developer:

In the event that the software technical support agreement is terminated for any reason whatsoever this agreement shall terminate.

The customer wanted to terminate the support agreement, but keep using the software. Terminating the support agreement would terminate the contract which had granted the licence. It is quite common for specific terms of a contract (including software licences) to survive termination (assuming that is what the parties intended). The question in this case was whether the grant of the “UK-wide perpetual licence” intended to create a never-ending licence that would survive termination of the main contract. The judge said:

The word “perpetual” can carry different shades of meaning. It can, for example, mean “never ending” (in the sense of incapable of being brought to an end) or it can mean “operating without limit of time”.

The judge found that in this instance, the “perpetual licence” meant a licence “operating without limit of time”, i.e. it continued until either party terminated it for some valid reason (such as ending the support agreement).

The ruling does not mean that every “perpetual licence” is perpetual until terminated. A contract (such as a licence) is always interpreted according to its terms and intentions of the parties. In some cases, “perpetual” will clearly mean “never ending” (in which case it may be a good idea to record it as “perpetual, irrevocable licence”). In this case, the “perpetuality” was trumped by the tied support requirement, and could not have been intended as never-ending – either a case of poor drafting by the customer, or good (or fortuitous) drafting by the developer.

Smoking gun emails

The major court battle over copyright infringement between YouTube and Viacom currently underway in the US has turned up some pretty damaging internal emails between the founders. E.g. this from YouTube co-founder Steve Chen to Jawed Karim:

“jawed, please stop putting stolen videos on the site. We’re going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.”

While the founders probably aren’t too concerned (having long since cashed out), the evidence may yet cause YouTube’s owner Google a headache. Another reminder not to put damaging comments in writing – in litigation, almost everything is potentially discoverable.

More audio/visual technology in NZ courts

“A bill that will allow greater use of audio visual links in courtrooms passed its first reading in Parliament yesterday.” more…

Nestlé trade marks Kit Kat shape

Nestlé has won an appeal allowing it to trade mark (in Australia) the shape of a Kit Kat bar (or as the application prosaicly calls it, “Chocolate confectionary being chocolate-coated confectionary blocks or bars and chocolate-coated wafer biscuits”). Trade marking shapes is permitted in New Zealand and other countries (for example Toblerone chocolate in some countries). In fact, many “non-lexical” things can be trade marked, including (in New Zealand) colours, smells, sounds, and tastes.

Strangely, chocolate has long been a major battle-ground for trade mark disputes. In New Zealand, Cadbury lost a 2008 Court of Appeal battle to trade mark the word “purple” (though not the colour, which it already trade marks). Last month in Australia, Guylian lost a Federal Court battle to trade mark its seahorse shaped chocolates, which the court found “not sufficiently inherently distinctive”.  In contrast, two years ago a Japanese court allowed Guylian the same trade mark in Japan, finding that the shape was sufficiently distinctive.

I’m sure the story about the unfortunate “fudge this” comment accidentally left in a set of company accounts is familiar to many lawyers, especially those involved in litigation (or M&A, when rounds of revised documents are flying through the small hours).

This latest example is embarrasing but really not too bad. The real mistake was using the word “fudge”. Anyone who has helped put together (or dissect) accounts and other reporting data knows that occasionally something does need to be a “best estimate” (a more advisable term).

In litigation a lawyer’s job often involves poring over documents, looking for mistakes, inconsistencies, and things that are generally helpful to your client’s case. Much money and sweat is expended on discovery and hoping to find the elusive smoking gun. It does happen, but in my experience unless it’s an outright admission of guilt/breach/bad faith/etc (or something similar), it’s usually not as damaging as it might at first seem.

It’s more productive to focus on the links between documents and “data mine” what you already have (or can get easily). Many lawyers on the other side of major disputes I’ve been involved in have done a terrible job (apparently, based on the results) of data mining their material.

But in terms of what’s in the documents themselves, far better (or worse) than a simple comment, can be tracked changes left in a document. These are great because they record the exact changes made to specific words, the user who made the change and the time. I recently had a situation where this was especially useful in proving certain negotiations between a first and second draft of a contract. There are stories of clients (and lawyers) being caught out by some unmerged tracked changes, or Word’s less-understood “versioning” feature.

The upcoming changes to the District Court Rules make the old discovery process obsolete. It is no longer necessary for the parties to disclose all relevant, non-privileged material. But thanks to email, litigants tend to have far more of the “other side’s” documents than ever before. And thanks to electronic documents, tracked changes and the like, there is more data in the documents than ever before. It will be interesting to see how the new DC discovery process goes, and whether it results in litigants focussing more on data mining what they have, in preference to wrangling over what they don’t.