An increasing number of US eDiscovery providers are setting up operations in the EU and in the Asia-Pacific region. Part of the objective here is to capture new work, but the main motive is usually to give a better and more complete service to new and existing US clients.
NightOwl Discovery has been offered hosting services in Dublin for some time now and, as Tom Palladino, its President, says in this interview, is planning to open one in Düsseldorf shortly.
The main imperative so far as the clients are concerned is the ability to collect, host and review data in the EU in order to comply with EU restrictions on the use and export of personally identifiable information. While the Schrems decision has not in fact made a difference to the tasks of which must be undertaken to manage this data properly, it has heightened awareness of the need to deal with processing and at least first pass review in the EU.
Part of the purpose is to arm the US lawyers with arguments necessary to persuade a US court or regulator of the scale of the issues and, more importantly, to explain what the organisation can properly do which meets the requirements of the US court without breaking EU laws.
eDisclosure Information Project 