“Although not unlimited, relevance, for purposes of discovery, is an extremely broad concept.” See Condit v. Dunne, 225 F.R.D. 100, 105 (S.D.N.Y. 2004). The discovery process is essentially a fact-finding mission. In theory, opposing parties are supposed to work together to make the litigation process more efficient. When both sides refuse to comply, additional motions are required result in additional costs.

In the case above, Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. (“Assured”) wrote financial guaranty policies on three residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”) sponsored by UBS Real Estate Securities Inc. (“UBS”). Id. Assured claimed that UBS breached their contractual obligations by providing false information in regards to credit. Assured filed a motion to compel the production of documents that were generated shortly after the transactions mentioned above. UBS claimed that the documents were irrelevant to the case at hand, and furthermore, such production would be unduly burdensome. The court mentioned that so long as the discovery appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, it will likely be permissible. The court also stated that only when the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit will the court limit discovery. The court considered:

1. the needs of the case;
2. the amount in controversy;
3. the parties’ resources;
4. the importance of the issues at stake in the action; and
5. the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, will the court limit discovery.

The court granted Assured’s motion to compel against UBS.

Conversely, UBS claimed that Assured also failed to comply with discovery demands. Assured allegedly failed to provide three categories of documents they claim are not related to the transaction at issue. The documents sought were thought to contain information about Assured’s knowledge of the originator’s underwriting policies and its knowledge of the practices of the rating agencies. Assured wanted documents to be provided to them; however, Assured has refused to cooperate in return. The court held that the documents requested by UBS could contain information very relevant to the initial contract dispute. This being the case, the motion to compel discovery against Assured was granted.

Finally, the parties seemed to have disagreement about the search terms that will be used to search various sources for relevant information. In this regard, the court declined to step in as no expert opinions were provided and the court did not have “technical expertise.” The court left the parties with three options: The parties could learn to cooperate and agree on certain criteria, the parties could re-file a motion to compel with expert affidavits, or the parties could seek the assistance of a neutral independent consultant. The court ultimately left this decision to the parties.

In summation, this case demonstrates that failing to cooperate with discovery is essentially a huge waste of time. As we see here, in the end, the court granted both motions to compel. The documents the parties attempted to hide were eventually exchanged. In a profession where time is money, attorneys cannot afford to stall and prolong the very process that makes our system function efficiently.