'Massive' Discovery Delays Trial of Former WellCare GC

http://ow.ly/6pLxO

Article on law.com on the LTN webpage, in the corporate counsel section, written by Sue Reisinger.

This article discusses the trial criminal trial of Thaddeus M.S. Bereday, the ousted general counsel of WellCare Health Plans, along with four other former company execs.  The trial has been postponed until next year due to the massive amount of eDiscovery that is being requested by the prosecutors.

The article describes the reason for the delay as follows, "Bereday's lawyer revealed that prosecutors possess millions of pages of electronic documents and company e-mails, as well as over 650 hours of recorded conversations -- presumably featuring the defendants -- taped by a cooperating witness.

The motion said the delay was needed "as a result of the complexity of the issues in this matter, the amount of discovery, and the existence of pending motions." Prosecutors agreed to the delay.

All the defendants said they need more time to process the materials and to resolve disputes over other discovery requests. One of those disputes, according to the motion, involves the defendants' request for materials from WellCare's own internal investigation."

As the article goes on to state, "In their motion, the defendants' lawyers said, "This case involves numerous complex issues concerning certain submissions made by WellCare ... The discovery in this case is massive."

Besides the tape recordings and electronic documents, the motion cites 760 boxes of hard copy documents seized during a 2007 government raid on WellCare's Tampa headquarters."

If your company is ever faced with such a situation, please keep in mind that this is the type of document production that SRM Legal is particularly adept at assisting with.