Events
E-Discovery Ramifications of the Qualcomm Case
March 18, 2008 | Webinar
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Duane Morris partners Frederick R. Ball of the firm's Trial Practice Group and John N. Maher and Richard T. Ruzich of the firm's Intellectual Property Practice Group presented a webinar on "E-Discovery Ramifications of the Qualcomm Case" on March 18, 2008.
About the Webinar:
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California's latest opinion in Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp., Case No. 05cv1958 (BLM) (S.D. Cal.), issued on January 7, 2008, serves as a warning to all corporate litigants regarding electronically stored documents and emails. This warning is especially applicable for in-house counsel, of which several were engulfed in this quagmire. The court ordered Qualcomm to pay all of Broadcom's litigation costs — around $8.5 million — for "intentionally with[holding] tens of thousands of decisive documents from its opponent in an effort to win this case and gain a strategic business advantage over Broadcom." In addition, the attorneys most heavily involved were referred to the California State Bar for violations of their ethical duties.
The district court's solution was to order Qualcomm to implement a "comprehensive Case Review and Enforcement of Discovery Obligations ('CREDO') program." While the district court's immediate goal was to remedy this specific instance of misconduct, the court hoped that its opinion would be a "road map" for electronic discovery and would "assist counsel and corporate clients in complying with their ethical and discovery obligations and conducting the requisite 'reasonable inquiry.'"
After the presentation, the attorneys hosted a live Q&A session.
