In a recent merger, a Canadian corporation was tasked with responding to the Competition Bureau’s request for supplementary information, known as a Supplementary Information Request (SIR), similar to Second Requests in the U.S. Working closely with the client and FTI’s team of experts, Tim Klinger, Managing Director at FTI Technology and the lead for the company’s practice in Canada, helped the client implement FTI’s Ringtail e-discovery software to review approximately 420 GB of data that was potentially relevant to the government’s request.

Looking to reduce the dataset in a defensible manner, and thereby contain costs for the client, FTI and client counsel sought to gain approval from the regulator to apply predictive coding in place of manual review. Using a statistically valid random sample that was then coded by reviewers as a baseline, Ringtail’s analytics were applied to determine if the remaining documents were similarly relevant or irrelevant. Through this approach, the team determined that the search terms provided by the Bureau yielded a high return of irrelevant documents and would require disproportionate manual review. When these findings were presented to the Bureau, along with a detailed explanation of the e-discovery processes being used, the Bureau approved the use of predictive coding.

Prior to this case, the Competition Bureau had not knowingly agreed to permit a company to produce materials to them using predictive coding. But the matter’s outcome clearly demonstrates how analytics technology can contain costs and reduce risk for corporations facing or preparing for a competition review and assist regulators in the process.

Legaltech News recently published an article by Mr. Klinger outlining how analytics – specifically predictive coding tools – can be applied to Canadian competition review matters, and some proactive steps competition lawyers can take to streamline processes and reduce costs. Check out the full article here.