Allianz Global Investors GmbH v. Bank Of America Corporation

Background

Following a telephone conference with the parties, the court addressed several discovery, sealing, and scheduling matters in the action.

Rulings

Norges Bank’s discovery dispute

Regarding Plaintiff Norges Bank’s letter motion for discovery and the parties’ dispute about whether Norges Bank had to search the documents of a former employee, the court found that the former employee had knowledge of information relevant to the subject matter of the action and therefore was a proper custodian. A custodian is a person whose documents may be searched or collected for discovery. The court expressly stated that it was not deciding whether any of the former employee’s knowledge could be attributed to another person or entity.

Barclays Defendants’ extension request

The court granted the Barclays Defendants’ letter motion for an extension of time. Their deadline to determine whether “Early Period” audio files existed for certain custodians was extended to January 15, 2021. The order allowed them to seek another extension for good cause, provided that by December 31, 2020, they gave Plaintiffs the results of searches of New York servers for the two custodians who worked out of New York during the Early Period.

Motions to seal and production schedule

The court granted the parties’ outstanding letter motions to seal, citing the privacy interests involved and the need to balance those interests against the public’s presumptive right of access to judicial documents. The court also approved the schedule proposed in the parties’ joint letter concerning Defendants’ production of Bloomberg persistent chatroom transcripts.

Further discovery deadlines

By December 31, 2020, each Defendant was required to give Plaintiffs a progress report on generating hit-count reports. Each report had to include the Defendant’s best estimate of when it would provide those reports to Plaintiffs. By January 21, 2021, at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time, the parties had to file a joint letter about the status of discovery and any existing disputes. The parties were also directed to appear for another telephone conference on January 28, 2021, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Disposition and scope

The order granted the Barclays Defendants’ extension motion and granted the outstanding motions to seal. It also made findings and directives concerning discovery and case management. It did not reach the merits of the underlying claims.