The Challenge
Our client, a large energy company, was in the process of divesting part of their business and was required to review a large volume of company data for release to the newly separated entity. The entity would be provided with material in a 'data room'. The data room would contain operationally essential information, as agreed to in the divestiture agreement. However, our client needed to ensure that all commercially sensitive and personally identifiable data was excluded from the data set before release.
The official divestiture date was due to take place three weeks after review commencement. Provision of the data by the due date was a central component of the contract and non-compliance would have resulted in significant financial penalties if the new parent company was not able to commence operations on the agreed date.
The client needed to:
- Identify their commercially sensitive data or personal customer and employee information that was to be excluded from the transfer of data to the new entity; and
- Ensure that the new entity was provided with all the information that would be crucial to continuing operations after the divestiture.
By engaging Law In Order, the client could be confident that their commercially sensitive data would be retained. Moreover, our review team could process the data and complete the review prior to the separation date and ensure there was no unnecessary delay in the transition period.
This client sought advice from our expert review workflow team as to how to provide the new entity with the appropriate data prior to the separation date.
Solution
- Process the documents
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- Our technical team uploaded the native data onto the Relativity platform for review.
- Due to the original structure and format of the data, the data was unable to be automatically de-duplicated however, we worked with the client to develop a solution through propagation of review coding to identify all instances of documents to be removed from the source data.
- We also worked alongside the client to develop effective and accurate keyword searches and apply them to the data to create batches of documents for the review team to examine, including ongoing fine-tuning of those searches as the data was reviewed and further trends identified.
- Review by our Managed Review Team for commercially sensitive and private data to exclude:
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- Database design and setup to suit our client's review outcomes.
- Provided training to the review team on redacting commercially sensitive data and personal customer and staff information.
- Identify documents proposed to be excluded from the data room
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- Establish identifiable risk categories for the client, including high risk for commercially sensitive documents and material containing personally identifiable information (PII).
- We prepared a list of all instances of the documents to be excluded from the data room to be handed over to the new company. We also worked with the client's IT team to create a workflow to separate out the identified material from that to be included in the database.
Outcome
Our expert review team worked closely with our client to reduce their reviewable set of potentially relevant documents from over 2.5 million documents to 250,000 by combination of keyword searches and propagation of relevance coding.
We provided the client with a list of documents to be excluded from the entity's company's data room. The Law In Order review team worked diligently to identify commercially sensitive data to make sure it was not passed onto the separate entity. The data room for the new company was ready to be handed over by the client's deadline.
Your Project
The large volume of time and resources necessary to ensure accurate document review can put at risk both the quality and speed of your client's outcomes, when working without the right support. Let our expert review team provide you with the resources you need for a tight turnaround.
If you are interested in understanding how our services might benefit you and your team, please do not hesitate to contact us for an obligation free discussion.
