City of Providence, Rhode Island v. Bats Global Markets, Inc.
- Jesse Furman
- 1:14-cv-02811
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In City of Providence v. BATS Global Markets, Judge Furman extended deadlines and denied both sides’ discovery motions.
The scheduling order affects all parties in the case. The discovery rulings affect the plaintiffs, BATS Global Markets, Inc., Direct Edge ECN, LLC, and the third parties whose data or depositions were discussed.
What happened
In City of Providence, Rhode Island v. BATS Global Markets, Inc., the court extended the case deadlines by three months and continued requiring joint status letters every two months. The parties were also scheduled to appear for a court conference on September 22, 2020.
The defendants asked for communications by the plaintiffs’ lawyers with third parties about the plaintiffs’ trade data. The plaintiffs asked BATS Global Markets, Inc. and Direct Edge ECN, LLC to collect documents from additional custodians. The court denied both requests.
Judge Furman said the defendants could first seek guidance through depositions of the third parties, and the plaintiffs had not shown that the defendants’ custodian list was seriously deficient. Both denials were without prejudice, allowing more targeted or renewed requests under the conditions stated by the court.
The detailed version
- City of Providence, Rhode Island v. Bats Global Markets, Inc. · No. 1:14-cv-02811
- Jesse Furman
- May 6, 2020
Scheduling
The court extended by three months the deadlines in the August 16, 2019 Case Management Plan, as amended on March 4, 2020. The parties were directed to continue submitting joint status letters every two months. Unless the court ordered otherwise, they were to appear for a conference on September 22, 2020, at 3 p.m.
Defendants’ Discovery Motion
The defendants moved to compel production of the plaintiffs’ counsel’s communications with third parties concerning the plaintiffs’ trade data. The court denied the motion. It stated that although the defendants needed guidance in interpreting the third-party data, the more appropriate way to obtain that guidance was through Rule 30(b)(6) depositions of the third parties. The court found it speculative that the communications would provide the needed guidance and concluded that producing them would be unduly burdensome, including because it could lead to disputes over redactions protecting the plaintiffs’ trial strategy.
The denial was without prejudice to more targeted requests after the defendants exhausted other methods, such as Rule 30(b)(6) depositions, to obtain the information and guidance they said they needed. The court also instructed the plaintiffs’ counsel to cooperate with defense counsel in identifying deposition topics and, if necessary, formulating questions.
Plaintiffs’ Discovery Motion
The plaintiffs moved to compel BATS Global Markets, Inc. and Direct Edge ECN, LLC to collect relevant documents from additional custodians proposed by the plaintiffs. The court denied the motion. It held that the plaintiffs had not shown that the defendants’ custodian list, prepared under the parties’ electronic-discovery protocol, was so “manifestly unreasonable” or deficient that court intervention was required at that stage.
The denial was without prejudice to the plaintiffs renewing the motion after reviewing the defendants’ initial production or making a sufficient factual showing that one or two proposed custodians possessed information that could not otherwise be obtained from the defendants’ identified custodians.
Disposition
The court denied both discovery motions and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate ECF Nos. 413 and 415. This opinion addressed scheduling and discovery; it did not decide the parties’ underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.