International Legal Firm Surveillance Delays Trial For Two Years

The city's popular legal firm has been accused of "inadequate" surveillance, which led to the disappearance of nearly 85,000 documents and a trial that was delayed for more than two years.

Fieldfisher and its customer, a toy maker MGA, are accused of failing to promise the court to ensure proper disclosure in preparation for last month's trial.

The MGA notified the court three weeks before the trial that the documents had been omitted during data collection. Its rival, toy developer Cabo, alleges that the review process was "seriously flawed" and "characterized by poor method selection and inadequate oversight and oversight". The trial is currently scheduled for October 2024

Ronit Kreisberger QC, representing Cabo, told the Supreme Court yesterday that the MGA and Fieldfisher had 'turned a blind eye to the warning signs', adding that the defendant and his attorneys were 'turning a blind eye' debunk' who is responsible for failures in disclosure. Kreisberger told the court that "disclosure officers were "too young, too inexperienced or reluctant to take responsibility", suggesting that it was "institutional flaws that undermined the entire process." ".

She added: 'Even now that the initial issues have surfaced, it is clear that neither Fieldfisher nor the MGA are underestimating what full compliance with their disclosure obligations requires, with the team MGA's IT team kept making mistakes. Core and Fieldfisher continue to maintain that the harvesting process is robust. '

The case involved an alleged secret MGA campaign to prevent Cabo from releasing a new toy to compete with an MGA brand. It is alleged that the MGA has threatened retailers that plan to blacklist Cabo toys of its own products.

At a records management conference last year, Recorder Douglas Campbell QC issued an extended disclosure order after the defendant told the court it would handle the document collection internally and that the process would supported and supervised by electronic disclosure experts, including Fieldfisher. 

The court heard that expert advice to "harvest" documents without any screening was not followed and that the documents were filtered by date range when they were first collected. first.

Other malpractices meant that nearly 

400 documents were never reviewed: Fieldfisher wondered whether individual documents should be reviewed, but felt it was unnecessary. An email from a Fieldfisher partner said the company is "not overly concerned" about any particular email that hasn't been collected because of "the fact that disclosure is an imperfect process and mistakes do happen." ".

Victoria Wakefield QC, for the MGA, argues that much of the pre-test work has already been done. "MGA of course apologizes for these errors and for being present before you today," she said. "None of this should go wrong and we don't underestimate the impact on plaintiffs."

In a brief oral ruling, Judge Dame Joanna Smith ruled that expenses up to the adjournment date must be paid on an indemnity basis, with the order requiring the MGA to pay 

5% of the amount of £1.5 million on an interim basis has claimed. The reason will be announced in the course.