Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:24-cv-02783
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Jane Street v. Millennium, Judge Engelmayer set limits on access to confidential discovery in a proposed protective order.
Jane Street Group, LLC, Millennium Management LLC, Douglas Schadewald, Daniel Spottiswood, Millennium’s two designated in-house counsel, and the proposed Millennium business professional were affected by the limits on access to confidential discovery.
What happened
Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC involved a dispute over who could view confidential information produced during the case. The parties agreed that a protective order was needed but disagreed about access for two individual defendants, Millennium’s in-house lawyers, and one Millennium business professional.
The court allowed Douglas Schadewald and Daniel Spottiswood to see documents they authored or received while working at Jane Street, but not all discovery. It allowed two designated Millennium in-house lawyers to review sensitive discovery, while rejecting access for Millennium’s business professional and pointing to independent experts as an alternative.
Judge Engelmayer ordered the parties to jointly submit a proposed protective order consistent with these limits by June 7, 2024.
The detailed version
- Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC · No. 1:24-cv-02783
- Paul Engelmayer
- June 3, 2024
Background
Jane Street Group, LLC and defendants Millennium Management LLC, Douglas Schadewald, and Daniel Spottiswood disputed the terms of a protective order governing confidential information produced in the litigation. A protective order is a court order that limits how sensitive information obtained through discovery may be used or shared. The parties agreed that an order was necessary but disagreed about access to material designated for attorneys’ eyes only.
Legal standard
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c), a court may issue a protective order for good cause to prevent harm such as undue burden or disclosure of trade secrets or other confidential commercial information. The party seeking protection must show that disclosure could cause a clearly defined, specific, and serious injury. For attorneys’-eyes-only restrictions, the court balances the producing party’s risk of economic harm against the requesting party’s need for the information.
Access for Schadewald and Spottiswood
The court denied Schadewald and Spottiswood’s request for unfettered access to all discovery. It adopted Jane Street’s proposal to allow them access to documents they authored or received while at Jane Street. The court reasoned that they needed enough information to defend themselves, including information about the alleged trade secrets at issue, but did not need access to highly confidential information they had not seen while working at Jane Street. The court gave as an example information about changes Jane Street made to its protocols and processes after their departure.
Access for Millennium’s in-house counsel
The court adopted Millennium’s proposal to allow two designated in-house counsel to review discovery designated for attorneys’ eyes only. The court noted that Millennium represented, and Jane Street did not dispute, that these lawyers were not involved in competitive decision-making or trading decisions for Millennium. The court concluded that their need to access technical discovery to defend Millennium outweighed the risk of inadvertent disclosure. The ruling was limited to two in-house counsel, despite a discrepancy between Millennium’s brief and its proposed order concerning whether two or three could be designated.
Access for Millennium’s business professional
The court sided with Jane Street and rejected Millennium’s proposal to give one of its business professionals access to all discovery. It reasoned that few circumstances justify giving an adversary’s employees access to a competitor’s trade secrets and that Millennium’s cited authority did not support its request. The court recognized Millennium’s concern that counsel might need help interpreting technical material but stated that Millennium could retain outside experts. The existing proposed order allowed disclosure of attorneys’-eyes-only information to an expert when reasonably necessary for the litigation and after the expert signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Disposition
Judge Engelmayer directed the parties to jointly file, by June 7, 2024, a proposed protective order consistent with the restrictions in the order.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.