How Advances in Technology Can Impact Cross-Border Electronic Discovery

Abstract

An email within an organization can travel just as easily from New York to California as it can to Tokyo. Yet, when that email becomes evidence in litigation filed in the United States, there can be vastly different costs and strategies for discovery depending on whether the email, at any time, was maintained outside of the United States. That is because many countries have adopted laws protecting the privacy of certain topics of electronic information. Those laws often run directly contrary to laws in the United States, which require parties in litigation to preserve, collect, review and produce all relevant, non-privileged documents and electronically stored information.