Jefferies Funding LLC v. Dasagroup Holdings Corp.

Summary

The court resolves a discovery dispute concerning the adequacy of Dasagroup Holdings Corp.’s privilege log and documents withheld on trade-secret grounds. It orders Dasagroup to serve a revised privilege log with additional descriptions and document information, and orders production of the disputed trade-secret documents under an Attorneys-Eyes Only designation, rendering that portion of the dispute moot.

Holdings

1. A privilege log need not disclose verbatim email subject lines or file names when those fields themselves constitute attorney-client communications, but the log must provide a sufficient textual description of the nature and subject matter of the underlying document and, where relevant, the redacted fields.
2. For separately listed withheld documents that appear to be email attachments, the privilege log must identify the author or authors, recipients, date, nature of the document, and whether and to which email the document is attached.
3. The dispute over production of documents withheld as trade secrets was moot because Dasagroup agreed to produce the documents under the case's protective order with an Attorneys-Eyes-Only designation.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Dasagroup's privilege log adequately described documents withheld under the attorney-client privilege when email subject lines and file names were redacted.
2. Whether privilege-log entries for separately listed attachments adequately identified the documents and described their nature.
3. Whether the court should compel production of documents withheld on trade-secret grounds when Dasagroup agreed to produce them under an Attorneys-Eyes-Only designation.

Disposition

other