Case Updates
Cert. denied
June 27, 2011
U.S. Chamber files amicus brief urging Supreme Court to decide on grand jury subpoena status during class action discovery
April 20, 2011
NCLC urged the Supreme Court to decide whether a grand jury subpoena always trumps a civil protective order covering documents provided to plaintiffs during class action discovery. A recent Ninth Circuit ruling could encourage the federal government to initiate a criminal probe, thereby triggering a piggyback civil class action by private plaintiffs, and then abuse the grand jury subpoena as a tool to obtain from the defendant’s lawyers foreign documents that it otherwise could not obtain as part of the criminal investigation.