IN RE DIDI GLOBAL INC. SECURITIES LITIGATION
- Lewis Kaplan
- 1:21-cv-05807
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In re DiDi Global Inc. Securities Litigation: Judge Kaplan denied plaintiffs’ motion to set a production deadline because DiDi’s existing deadline had already passed.
The order affects plaintiffs and DiDi by addressing DiDi’s overdue document-production obligations and the possibility of discovery sanctions.
What happened
In In re DiDi Global Inc. Securities Litigation, plaintiffs asked the court to require DiDi to produce 1,013 documents by July 23, 2025, or state that it would not comply with an earlier order. Plaintiffs said the delay was harming them as discovery was nearing its close and more than 20 depositions were planned.
DiDi said it was waiting for approval from authorities in China before deciding which documents to produce. The court explained that its earlier order required production despite any applicable blocking laws or approval process. The court also rejected DiDi’s argument that the request was an improper request to reconsider an earlier ruling.
The court clarified that the existing scheduling order required DiDi to complete production by June 24, 2025, and that deadline had passed. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel production by a new date, while noting that DiDi could face sanctions for violating the scheduling order.
The detailed version
- IN RE DIDI GLOBAL INC. SECURITIES LITIGATION · No. 1:21-cv-05807
- Lewis Kaplan
- July 23, 2025
Background
The court had previously ordered DiDi to produce 1,115 documents that DiDi had withheld based on Chinese blocking laws, attorney-client privilege, and attorney-work-product protections. Plaintiffs stated that DiDi had not produced 1,013 of those documents during the month after the earlier order.
Plaintiffs moved to compel DiDi to produce the remaining documents by July 23, 2025, or state that it was refusing to comply with the earlier order. They argued that the delay prejudiced them because discovery was scheduled to close in about a month and they expected to take more than 20 depositions.
Parties’ Arguments
DiDi responded that it was waiting for approval from authorities in China before determining which documents to produce. The court noted that the earlier order required DiDi to produce the challenged documents despite the possible application of Chinese blocking laws or the need for approval from those authorities.
DiDi also argued that plaintiffs’ motion was an improper request for reconsideration because the court had recently denied a broader motion to extend several case deadlines. The court rejected that argument. It explained that the earlier denial did not prevent plaintiffs from seeking the specific relief requested here and that the court could revise its earlier, non-final orders before judgment.
Ruling
The court held that the existing scheduling order already required DiDi to complete production responding to all document requests by June 24, 2025. Because that deadline covered the documents addressed by the earlier order, the court said the deadline had already passed and that DiDi remained obligated to comply with it.
The court denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel DiDi’s production of the documents by a new, specific date. It did not grant another production extension. The court stated that DiDi might be subject to sanctions for failing to comply with the scheduling order, but said DiDi could raise any hardship arguments in response to a possible sanctions motion. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan entered the order on July 23, 2025.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.