Extract from Jim Gill’s article “Unprecedented Discovery Data Volume in FTX Case Highlights Growing Need for AI”
In the ongoing case of Sam Bankman-Fried and his failed crypto exchange FTX, the growing volume of evidence highlights the new landscape of ediscovery challenges when it comes to the breadth of new data sources showing up in corporate litigation.
According to the New York Times, this evidence ranges from snippets of computer code, Slack messages, and other digital records, to more than six million pages of emails and a small black notebook, filled with handwritten observations.
The Times reports that this is “among the largest ever collected in a white-collar securities fraud case prosecuted by the federal authorities in Manhattan.” For comparison, the 2004 securities fraud prosecution of Martha Stewart produced 525,000 pages of evidence for the defense team.
In the FTX case, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s Google accounts alone contained 2.5 million pages of ESI, and according to Nicolas Roos, a federal prosecutor investigating FTX, “the government had obtained a laptop crammed with so much information that the FBI technicians were struggling to decipher it.”
So far, the government has handed over nearly one million documents obtained from witnesses and other third parties in the case. Roos said, “We have produced 927,000, so that leaves, quick math, maybe 110,000.” To which the judge replied, “Bedtime reading.”
