Case Analysis – How did XBundle assist in a claim that exceeded 40 million?
Data Collection
In March 2022, XBundle were pleased to be instructed on behalf of Macfarlanes in a matter that included mobile phone collection. Macfarlanes represented the First to Fourth Defendants in the Goyal & Anor v BGF Investment Management Limited & Ors matter.
Our digital forensics specialist imaged the complete mobile phone device. We collected c.86 GB of raw data by way of imaging. The process of “imaging” means the forensic software is used, in this case Cellebrite, to extract all available content from the mobile phone device as a single container file. This would then made viewing through a proprietary desktop app to view the contents or for processing into a document review platform such as Everlaw or Relativity.
In this action, our forensic expert met the phone owner on site applied the relevant date range and filtered out all content that was not chat messages from Whatsapp messaging or SMS services. This reduced the data size down from c.86GB c. 3GB. He then Bitlockered the data for transfer to us, which we subsequently processed into Everlaw.
eDisclosure
Between March – April 2022, we assisted the legal team with their disclosure. This included setting up workflows, commenting on section 2 of the Disclosure Review Document, creating and batching assignments groups and running the disclosure production. We also ran further productions in August 2022 and September 2022.
Electronic Bundle Creation
In January 2023, we were instructed by all three parties, Macfarlanes, Gresham Legal and CMS for creating electronic bundles. Firstly, we ran email threading on the disclosed documents and re-indexed the documents on the eDisclosure platform. We then exported the disclosed documents off the eDisclosure platform and started collating the documents for the electronic bundles. We created Bundles A – H and the Transcripts bundles. This included creating indices, formatting documents, amendments and edits, OCR’ing documents, creating bookmarks, pagination and hyperlinking indices.
As an XBundle standard, we provided the parties with two version of each bundle; a landscape version and a portrait version. The portrait version was the print ready bundle, and the landscape version was the electronic presentation of evidence (“EPE”) version. Both versions were exactly the same, however, reports, costs budgets and similar documents were rotated so that they could be read from left to right and the pagination was in the correct place (bottom right of the page).
The final agreed list of documents was agreed on 2nd February, we managed to complete all bundles by the 3rd February 2023.
Cloud hosting
All bundles were hosted in our secure ISO27001 certified virtual data room – XBundle::Cloud. Permissions and user groups were set up our data room. Users could view and download the bundles before, during and after the trial.
Reprographics
We printed 9 sets of each bundle for Counsel, legal team and clients. This included formatting large complex excel spreadsheets to PDFs. We delivered to the City of London, Manchester, and Scotland. All deliveries were same day or next day. This is over 220 lever arch files!
3 weeks trial in the Commercial Court
In March 2023 – April 2023, we provided electronic bundles and cloud hosting, electronic presentation of evidence (“EPE”), electronic presentation of evidence equipment and same-day transcripts for 12 sittings days. We also provided 17 screens, page turner and technical expert in court. We presented the electronic bundles on a live stream to all 17 screens. As an XBundle standard, we provided a copy of the same day transcripts and word index on a daily basis to Mr Justice Butcher. We also assisted with any additional insertions to the electronic bundles during the trial and dealt with any technical issues arising through the proceedings.
As always, we love receiving good feedback from the legal team:
“The trial went well so thanks for all your help with the bundling and printing and the late night(s)”
Associate, Macfarlanes LLP
Judgment
On 26 May 2023, Mr Justice Butcher handed down judgment in Goyal & Anor v BGF Investment Management Limited & Ors [2023] EWHC 1180 (Comm).
The Claimants were represented by Harish Salve KC and Peter Head of Blackstone Chambers and Chintan Chandrachud of Brick Court, instructed by Gresham Legal. David Mumford KC and Ryan James Turner from Maitland Chambers were instructed on behalf of the First to Fourth Defendants by Macfarlanes LLP, and the Fifth Defendant was represented by Lesley Anderson KC and Paul Strelitz of Gatehouse Chambers, instructed by CMS.
For a copy of the judgment, please click here.
