In re Tether and Bitfinex Crypto Asset Litigation
- Katherine Failla
- 1:19-cv-09236
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Tether and Bitfinex Crypto Asset Litigation, Judge Failla denied without prejudice Plaintiffs’ request for two corporate depositions, allowing renewal later.
The ruling affected Plaintiffs’ ability to take two Rule 30(b)(6) depositions of the Bitfinex Defendants. It denied the request at this stage but allowed Plaintiffs to renew it later in the deposition period.
What happened
In In re Tether and Bitfinex Crypto Asset Litigation, Plaintiffs asked to take two depositions of the Bitfinex Defendants under a rule allowing a company to designate someone to testify for it. They wanted one deposition early and another later in discovery.
The court found that the companies shared a parent company and had no separate directors, officers, or personnel. Plaintiffs had not shown why one deposition could not address all of their topics or why additional depositions were necessary at that stage. The court denied the request without prejudice to renewal later in the deposition period if new information showed that further questioning was needed.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motions at docket entries 396 and 397.
The detailed version
- In re Tether and Bitfinex Crypto Asset Litigation · No. 1:19-cv-09236
- Katherine Failla
- July 7, 2023
Issue
Plaintiffs sought permission to take two Rule 30(b)(6) depositions of the Bitfinex Defendants. Rule 30(b)(6) permits a party to depose an organization through one or more designated representatives who testify on the organization’s behalf. Plaintiffs proposed using one deposition for “informational” topics and another for “substantive issues.”
Court’s reasoning
The court noted that iFinex is the parent company of the Bitfinex Defendants and that BFXNA and BFXWW have no separate directors, officers, or other personnel. Plaintiffs did not argue that any Bitfinex Defendant had unique knowledge or that one designated witness could not speak for all three entities. The court therefore applied a presumption that separate or additional depositions would be cumulative or duplicative under Rule 26.
The court also found that Plaintiffs had not adequately explained why their proposed topics could not be addressed in a single deposition. The court largely agreed that the distinction between “informational” and “substantive” topics was illusory and noted that Plaintiffs had provided no supporting authority. In addition, the request was premature because the court had previously warned that any additional deposition must be shown to be truly necessary and not duplicative of information already obtained.
Ruling
The court DENIED Plaintiffs’ request without prejudice to renewal at the end of the deposition period. Plaintiffs may renew the request if information from other depositions reveals a major inconsistency or another issue requiring further examination. The court did not rule on additional objections to the noticed deposition topics. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motions at docket entries 396 and 397.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.