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England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions >> Astra Asset Management UK Ltd & Anor v MUSST Investments LLB & Ors [2020] EWHC 1871 (Ch) (22 April 2020) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2020/1871.html Cite as: [2020] EWHC 1871 (Ch) |
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BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS
OF ENGLAND AND WALES
BUSINESS LIST (ChD)
Fetter Lane London, EC4A 1NL |
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B e f o r e :
____________________
(1) ASTRA ASSET MANAGEMENT UK LIMITED | ||
(2) ASTRA CAPITAL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED | Claimants | |
- and - | ||
(1) MUSST INVESTMENTS LLP | ||
(3) MR SALEEM ANWAR SIDDIQI | Defendants | |
AND | ||
MUSST HOLDINGS LIMITED | Claimant | |
- and - | ||
(1) ASTRA ASSET MANAGEMENT UK LIMITED | ||
(2) ASTRA ASSET MANAGEMENT LLP | Defendants |
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MR P. KNOX QC (instructed by Collyer Bristow LLP) appeared on behalf of Musst and Mr Siddiqi.
MR J. ONIONS QC (instructed by Payne Hicks Beach) appeared on behalf of the Astra Parties in claim no. BL-2018-002369.
MR D. GLEN appeared on behalf of the Astra Parties in claim no. BL-2019-001483.
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Crown Copyright ©
If this Transcript is to be reported or published, there is a requirement to ensure that no reporting restriction will be breached. This is particularly important in relation to any case involving a sexual offence, where the victim is guaranteed lifetime anonymity (Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992), or where an order has been made in relation to a young person
This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved
CHIEF MASTER MARSH:
"The court expects the parties (and their representatives) to cooperate with each other and to assist the court so that the scope of disclosure, if any, that is required in proceedings can be agreed or determined by the court in the most efficient way possible".
"to liaise and cooperate with the legal representative of the other parties to the proceedings … so as to promote the reliable, efficient and cost-effective conduct of disclosure, including through the use of technology".
"… an order for Extended Disclosure must be reasonable and proportionate having regard to the overriding objective".
"to discuss and endeavour to agree the approach to be taken to disclosure, always with a view to reducing the burden and cost of this process".
"… the parties should seek to agree the following as early as possible in the process:
(…)
(5) How each party intends to use analytics to conduct a proportionate review of the dataset;
(6) How each party intends to use technology assisted review to conduct a proportionate review of the data set (particularly where the review data set is likely to be in excess of 50,000 documents)".
"a Whilst the Claimant's PC used by Saleem Siddiqi contained documents held in this mailbox, it was discovered during the review of the documents downloaded from the Claimant's UltraVault archiving [system] that emails sent/received by this mailbox had not been downloaded for the application of keyword searches.
b Post-de-duplication, 108,112 documents downloaded from UltraVault in respect of this mailbox were responsive to the keywords and date range parameters set out in Appendix A".
(1) The first is a complaint that the approved date range was not used for all custodians. This is accepted. It is submitted on behalf of Musst that it applied the date ranges in a sensible and proportionate way. As an example, the search term "New York" was only applied to a limited period because the term was designed to relate to a one off trip to New York, not to an extended period of time. It seems to me that this was a sensible approach. It is right to state, as indeed is made clear by Marcus Smith J in Agent's Mutual, that where a party is making adjustments or apparent adjustments to an agreed process, it is important to inform the other party in advance and to try to seek agreement. As I have said, I am not convinced that in a complex and dynamic process it will be practical to agree every minor adjustment; but it is important that the other party is informed so that they are aware and some effort is made to agree.
(2) The second point concerns the discovery that a large number of emails from Mr Siddiqi's inbox had not been downloaded for the application of keyword searches. Clearly, this was a failure that should not have occurred, but there is no evidence that Astra has been able to place before the court that this failure of process in the disclosure exercise has led to a failure to disclose material documents. The error was made clear on the face of the Disclosure Certificate and, importantly, a clear explanation was given about what steps were subsequently taken. It seems to me the point goes no further.
(3) The third point concerns the use of technology assisted review. It is important to note that in para.3.2 of the Practice Direction, there is a link between liaison and co-operation and the objective of cost efficient and cost-effective disclosure "including through the use of technology". This makes the obvious point that where a party is intending to use technology assisted review, the intention should be notified to the other party. It was not a point that was raised at the CCMC. That itself is not a criticism because the CCMC took place at a relatively early stage; but it was plainly right that Astra's advisers should have been informed of a proposal to use technology assisted review. In all probability, had they been so informed there could have been no proper basis for objection once the estimated cost of using technology assisted review had been provided. There was a failure of process and it is right to highlight it.
Paragraph 3(f) concerns documents that relate to Musst's financial expectations. There are two points that arise:
1 So far as redactions are concerned I will deal with them shortly when I deal with that subject.
2 As to the existence of additional documents, I was not persuaded by Mr Onions' submissions that documents of this type could be directly related to any of the issues for disclosure as they had been defined, and it would therefore not be appropriate to make any further order. However, even if I have taken too narrow a view on the issues, this element of the application founders on proportionality grounds.
"5.9 It has come to light that whilst Musst Investments LLP instructed its IT provider, Simply Mail Solutions to set up archive storage of its emails in November 2012, and such archiving was put in place via UltraVault, in August 2015 the archiving storage service used by Simply Mail Solutions was discontinued, and all data stored by it was permanently deleted. As a result, the emails that were deleted from [email protected] or [email protected] between November 2012 and August 2015 and had been stored on UltraVault were permanently deleted by the third party storage provider.
5.10 This has only come to light in the last couple of days as a result of extensive enquiries by our client. We are instructed that our client was not aware of this deletion at the time it occurred in 2015, or subsequently, until last week. As you will appreciate, the deletion occurred approximately 12 months prior to the first contemplation of these proceedings".
"was the backend service used by Simply Mail Solutions, namely Google Postini".
CERTIFICATE Opus 2 International Limited hereby certifies that the above is an accurate and complete record of the Judgment or part thereof. Transcribed by Opus 2 International Limited Official Court Reporters and Audio Transcribers 5 New Street Square, London, EC4A 3BF Tel: 020 7831 5627 Fax: 020 7831 7737 [email protected] This transcript has been approved by the Judge. |