Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank Of America Corporation
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:18-cv-10364
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank of America Corporation, Judge Aaron ordered chatroom discovery, denied defendants’ request, and scheduled further discovery proceedings.
The order directly affected the plaintiffs and defendants by requiring specified chatroom production, denying the defendants’ separate discovery request, and imposing joint discovery deadlines.
What happened
In Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank of America Corporation, the court addressed disputes about discovery in a case involving alleged chatroom-based conspiracy allegations.
The court ordered the defendants to produce specified chatroom transcripts within 30 days and denied their request to compel the plaintiffs to produce communications with third parties about the litigation. It also ordered the parties to file a joint discovery-status letter and attend another telephone conference.
Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron issued the November 10, 2020 order, which stated that producing the chatroom transcripts was proportional to the needs of the case.
The detailed version
- Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank Of America Corporation · No. 1:18-cv-10364
- Lorna Schofield
- Nov. 10, 2020
Background
After a telephone conference about the parties’ November 5, 2020 joint letter, Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron ruled on discovery disputes. The order noted that District Judge Lorna Schofield had previously found plausible allegations of a conspiracy and had described multi-bank chatrooms as playing a central role in the alleged conspiracy.
Discovery ruling
The court ordered the defendants, within 30 days, to access and produce transcripts for the chatrooms listed in Appendix A to the joint letter that were not highlighted in yellow. The production was limited to the dates during which the defendants’ participants were in those chatrooms. The court found that producing the transcripts was proportional to the needs of the case because of the chatrooms’ central role.
The court denied the defendants’ request to compel the plaintiffs to produce communications with third parties about the litigation.
Additional case-management orders
The parties were ordered to file a joint letter about the status of discovery and any remaining disputes by December 10, 2020, at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time. They were also directed to appear for a telephone conference on December 17, 2020, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Disposition
The order granted the defendants’ request for production of the specified chatroom transcripts by ordering that production, denied the defendants’ request concerning the plaintiffs’ third-party communications, and set additional discovery-related deadlines and a conference.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.