Case Study
FTI Technology Responds to Large European Commission Phase II Request Within 24 Days
A large European corporation in the midst of an acquisition received a wide-reaching request for information (RFI) from the European Commission. With only weeks to respond, the organisation selected FTI Technology for the team’s extensive merger control expertise and market-leading technology solutions, to successfully respond to the inquiry on time.
Situation
When the European Commission issued the RFI, the client had only 24 days to comply for acquisition proceedings to continue. This required the collection, review, and disclosure of data from 23 custodians across multiple European countries.
In addition to the tight timeline and multi-jurisdictional reach of the inquiry, the client faced significant challenges relating to the large volumes of data in scope. Millions of documents were potentially relevant to the investigation, which were spread across disparate sources and contained privileged material.
Our Role
FTI Technology’s Digital Forensics & Investigations experts were engaged to lead the project and provide around-the-clock support to meet the impending deadline. The team collected data from 165 separate sources, including laptops, email mailboxes, servers, mobile phones and chat platforms. Further complicating the effort was the fact that many data sources had multiple layers of encryption in place, requiring FTI Technology’s teams to rapidly develop custom workflows to decrypt the data and render it searchable for legal review.
Once the data was defensibly collected and accessible, the team quickly scaled its technology deployment, e-discovery experts and managed document reviewers. This included a team of eight consultants, who staggered shifts to provide 24/7 coverage and support. More than 2.7 TBs of data were processed within five days, allowing the client’s law firm to begin testing search terms as quickly as possible.
FTI Technology’s team also oversaw a managed document review team of 38 qualified lawyers who conducted a 28-day review to ensure no privileged information was disclosed to the EC. More than 200,000 French, Dutch and Flemish documents were reviewed in less than four weeks.
Nearly 1 million documents were produced to the regulator, with all privileged material and personal information removed. Disclosures were hand-delivered in Brussels to comply with DG Comp’s requirements for large data deliveries.
Our Impact
With the support of FTI Technology, the client was able to meet the production deadline and avoid a stop the clock scenario. FTI Technology’s experts also provided the following results:
- Worked closely with counsel to draft responses to the regulator’s inquiries and draft a series of accompanying submissions reports as part of the regulator’s disclosure requirements.
- Provided the client with deep experience and understanding of the need to reduce the initial data set agreed with the EC to maximise downstream cost savings. The team supported counsel with the development and negotiation of search terms, resulting in a 75% reduction in the data set, which translated into significant costs savings of more than €260,000 in technology fees and review costs.
- Utilised FTI Technology’s custom duplicate analysis solution to remove duplicates and near duplicates from review and redaction, resulting in a nearly 40% reduction in review volume and savings of €140,000.