Panel Examines Rise in Class-Action Lawsuits and New State and Federal
Government Probes and Regulatory Initiatives
CAMBRIDGE, England and PLEASANTON, California, February 27
LAWFUEL – Legal Newswire — Autonomy ZANTAZ, a leader in the archiving,
eDiscovery and Proactive Information Risk Management (IRM) markets, (LSE:
AU. or AU.L), today announced electronic discovery best practices to
prepare financial institutions for the rise in class-action lawsuits and
new State and Federal Government probes and regulatory initiatives
anticipated from the subprime crisis. These best practices were discussed
in length yesterday by a panel moderated by Nicole Eagan of Autonomy ZANTAZ at the Subprime and Credit Crisis Conference in New York, NY consisting of former Assistant US Attorney Bridget M. Rohde and a partner with Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., Alan Winchester, Harris Beach PLLC, and Nicolas Croce, Inference Data.
Subprime fallout has already contributed to a rise in securities fraud
class action litigation, which rose 43 percent from 2006 to 2007 according
to research released earlier this year from Stanford Law School and
Cornerstone Research. This increase was largely due to a surge in the
Finance sector filings, which quadrupled from 2006, with over half the
filings associated with subprime market disclosure issues.(1) The panel
expects pattern litigation in this area, including securities class actions
and shareholder derivative litigation, to skyrocket in the coming year with
suits similar to the recent filing by the City of Cleveland against 21
banks involved in subprime loans in the city. The U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission has reportedly opened about three dozen cases related
to the subprime market collapse, and the FBI has recently announced its
investigation into 14 companies suspected of accounting fraud, improperly
securing loans and insider trading.
“Subprime litigation, government investigations and new regulations are
inevitable,” said Ms. Rohde of Mintz Levin. “Starting an internal
investigation right away can help financial institutions find the facts as
fast as possible, assess exposure to risk, demonstrate cooperation, and
prepare them for parallel investigations and litigations.”
“A recorded phone conversation can be very damning evidence,” according
to Nicholas Croce, President of Inference. “There is technology available
on the market today that can search, index and preserve video and audio
recordings in conjunction with textual files and these sources of data can
no longer be ignored.”
“Policy management is another area often neglected by IT,” added Alan
Winchester, member of Harris Beach PLLC. “Proactive information management
practices help control costs, ensure compliance, avoid sanctions, and
increase efficiency by enabling organizations to uncover relevant
information more quickly and identify obsolete information that may be
deleted without fear of legal sanction.”
Recommendations From the Panel Included:
Perform an internal investigation and early case assessment. Get ahead
of the curve by getting early insight into the facts of the case, which
allows you to assess the risks and whether or not settlement makes sense.
Interview employees at different level and perform early case assessment
(ECA) on real-time data, applying advanced analytics to uncover relevant
information across all electronically stored information (ESI). These steps
will frame the factual information and provide a foundation for
cooperation.
Be prepared to place relevant documents under legal hold. Once you
anticipate regulatory action or litigation, you must have a complete
preservation of all relevant electronically stored information for all
identified custodians. This is an important part of the amended rules of
civil procedure. Relevant information must be locked down in real-time and
securely collected when needed, and an organization must provide
documentation about its processes and chain-of-custody to validate and
confirm the completeness and accuracy of preservation procedures and
implementation. Legal hold technology that preserves relevant information
in email archives and centralized servers is a starting point; however,
don’t overlook the need to preserve information on PDA’s, laptops and
desktops. With the increasing mobility of the workforce, a large percentage
of that information never gets stored on the corporate network, leaving an
organization vulnerable to FRCP infractions and resulting sanctions or
fines. Instant messaging, video conferences and voice recordings of phone
conversations between lenders and customers can’t be ignored as well.
Prepare for pattern litigation. Multiple requests for the same
information will be highly likely in subprime litigation, government
investigations and regulatory compliance. While some requests may be broad
and other very specific, the use of eDiscovery software with sophisticated
filtering based on keywords and concepts and de-duplication capabilities
can create a collection of information for pattern litigation.
Evaluate information management policies. Avoid any possible
malfeasance by making sure that employees adhere to information policies
and data is properly preserved. Review the policies associated with data
retention and disposition. Implement automated systems that can manage
information in place rather than replicating and storing information in
multiple repositories, further adding complication and expense to
eDiscovery efforts. Implement real-time policy management to prevent
accidental deletion of relevant information that is under legal hold.
Bridge the gap between Legal and IT. One of the organizational
realities is the disconnect that exists between IT and legal when it comes
to eDiscovery requests. Legal may be handling requests on a case-by-case
basis depending on the priority and risks associated with each case.
However, it would be wise for CIOs to implement an information management
approach that supports pan-enterprise search for both business value and
eDiscovery. Using this approach, all information could be managed in place
and all data sources would be plumbed as one consolidated archive of
information.
Biographies of Panelists:
Bridget M. Rohde is a Member in Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and
Popeo’s New York office and practices in the Litigation Section. She is in
the White Collar & Corporate Investigative Practice. Before joining Mintz
Levin, Ms. Rohde was Chief of the Criminal Division of the United States
Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Nicholas Croce, president of Inference Data, has led the creation and
development of Inference, the company’s next-generation analytics software
for electronic discovery. Prior to forming Inference, Mr. Croce served as
president of Doar Litigation Consulting, where he was responsible for
driving Doar’s introduction of groundbreaking technologies for courtroom
presentation used by the nation’s largest law firms and Fortune 1000
corporations. Mr. Croce was also directly involved in helping set industry
standards for courtroom technology within the Administrative Office of the
U.S. Courts (AOUSC).
Alan M. Winchester, Member, Harris Beach PLLC, is the leader of the
e-info(sm) Electronic Information Counseling and Management Team of Harris
Beach PLLC, which provides comprehensive document management services for
both non-litigation and litigation scenarios. He practices within the
Medical & Life Sciences Industry Team and in the Mass Torts & Industry Wide
Litigation Practice Group.
To find out more about Autonomy ZANTAZ Proactive Information Risk
Management solutions, please visit http://www.ZANTAZ.com.
Note
(1) Securities Class Action Case Filings-2007: A Year in Review,
Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse and Cornerstone
Research
About Autonomy ZANTAZ
Autonomy ZANTAZ is the leader in the archiving, eDiscovery and
Proactive Information Risk Management (IRM) markets. It is the only vendor
that offers an entire spectrum of Proactive Information Risk Management
solutions ranging from consolidated archiving of all information sources
including email, IM, enterprise systems, voice and video, to discovery and
review, advanced eDiscovery, real-time policy management and analytics –
all based on a common platform, IDOL. ZANTAZ solutions, which support more
than 100 languages, are available as on-site software applications or
on-demand software services (SaaS), or a combination of both. ZANTAZ
customers include 10 of the 10 top global law firms, 13 of the Fortune 25
and 14 of the top 20 financial securities firms. Customers include Abbott
Laboratories, Capital One, JMP Securities, Johnson & Johnson, Liberty
Mutual, Linklaters, Philip Morris International and the U.S. Department of
Interior. For more information, visit http://www.ZANTAZ.com or call 800.636.0095.
About Autonomy
Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L) is a global leader in
infrastructure software for the enterprise and is spearheading the
meaning-based computing movement. Autonomy’s technology forms a conceptual
and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data including
unstructured information, be it text, email, voice or video. Autonomy’s
software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise
applications including information access technology, BI, CRM, KM, call
center solutions, rich media management, information risk management
solutions and security applications, and is recognized by industry analysts
as the clear leader in enterprise search.
Autonomy’s customer base comprises of more than 17,000 global companies
and organizations including: 3, ABN AMRO, AOL, BAE Systems, BBC, Bloomberg,
Boeing, Citigroup, Coca Cola, Daimler Chrysler, Deutsche Bank, Ericsson,
Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, Lloyd TSB, NASA, Nestle, the New York Stock
Exchange, Reuters, Shell, T-Mobile, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission. Autonomy also has over 300 OEM partners and more than 400 VARs
and Integrators, numbering among them leading companies such as BEA,
Business Objects, Citrix, EDS, IBM Global Services, Novell, Satyam, Sybase,
Symantec, TIBCO, Vignette and Wipro. The company has offices worldwide.
The Autonomy Group includes: ZANTAZ, the leader in the archiving,
e-Discovery and Proactive Information Risk Management (IRM) markets;
Cardiff, a leading provider of Intelligent Document solutions; etalk,
award-winning provider of enterprise-class contact center products and
Virage, a visionary in rich media management and security and surveillance
technology.
Autonomy and the Autonomy logo are registered trademarks or
trademarks of Autonomy Corporation plc. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective Owners.
Autonomy ZANTAZ Editorial Contacts:
Winifred Shum
Autonomy (US)
+1-408-771-6668
wshum@autonomy.com
Eric Doyle
Cohn & Wolfe (US)
+1-415-365-8526
Eric_doyle@cohnwolfe.com
Edward Bridges
Financial Dynamics (UK)
+44-207-831-3113
edward.bridges@fd.com
Ali Merifield
Bite Communications (UK)
+44(0)20-8834-3441
+44(0)20-8741-1123
ali.merifield@bitepr.com
