Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC

Background

The court addressed a renewed dispute over the terms of a protective order governing the use of confidential information produced in the case. The parties had submitted competing proposals concerning access to Jane Street’s confidential materials.

Access to the Trade-Secret Disclosure

The court sided with defendants Schadewald and Spottiswood, referred to as the individual defendants, on whether they could access Jane Street’s trade-secret disclosure. The court stated that a defendant must receive enough information to defend against the allegations. It found that the disclosure was essential because it specified Jane Street’s allegations and clarified the claims. The court also noted that Jane Street alleged that the individual defendants knew the trade secrets and had developed them.

The court therefore determined that the individual defendants could access Jane Street’s trade-secret disclosure. It based that decision on the disclosure’s consisting solely of information allegedly known to and exploited by the individual defendants and its central importance to preparing their defense.

Broader Document Access

The defendants separately proposed that the individual defendants be allowed to access all documents containing information to which they had access while working at Jane Street. The court declined to grant that request at this stage, while allowing the defendants to present a more focused request if a concrete dispute later arose concerning particular documents.

The court found the proposal difficult to administer and overbroad. It did not provide a clear way for counsel to determine what information the individual defendants had actually accessed. The court also expressed concern that treating “access” as including materials they theoretically could have accessed might provide unnecessarily broad access, given Jane Street’s representation that it had limited internal access controls.

The court found Jane Street’s proposal—allowing the individual defendants to access documents they received or authored—more sensible because it covered materials they demonstrably accessed. The court nevertheless recognized that other documents might be relevant, including documents accessed by Jane Street employees at the individual defendants’ direction on relevant projects. The court stated that it would revisit the issue if defense counsel identified particular documents the individual defendants should be able to review.

Protective-Order Filing

The court found that Jane Street’s proposed protective order did not identify each side’s designated in-house counsel in section 15(g). It therefore could not enter that proposed order without addressing the omission. The court also noted other minor wording differences between the parties’ proposals.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer directed the parties to jointly file, by June 17, 2024, a proposed protective order based on Jane Street’s proposal.