Fieldfisher: Leveraging Tech and Innovation for the CAT

A team from European law firm, Fieldfisher, renowned for its innovative approach, worked with TrialView to navigate a complex case before the Competition Appeal Tribunal. The case in question was highlighted by The Lawyer as one of its “Top 20 cases for 2023” and led by the highly regarded regulatory and competition litigation Partner Richard Pike, and a team comprising Director Simon Yeung, Associates Agnieszka Szewczyk and Alicja Dijakiewicz and Senior Paralegal Andreas Killi, amongst others.

The Challenge

The nature of the case demanded the creation of confidentiality rings, i.e., restricted access to confidential information by specific individuals or groups. Ensuring the security of the confidential data was paramount, with manual methods of managing confidentiality simply untenable due to the scale and complexity, as well as the pace, of this case.

The Solution

The Fieldfisher team partnered with TrialView and the Defendants’ lawyers to tailor the TrialView software to facilitate compliance with the Tribunal’s confidentiality order, whilst providing access to all registered users in a single, combined workspace.

How did this look in practice?

• With robust user authentication protocols, only authorised individuals had access to the confidential information. Two-factor authentication and role-based access control were key components.The most confidential information was only visible to parties within a court ordered inner confidentiality ring, while less sensitive but still confidential material was visible to those in an outer confidentiality ring. Users who were not members of the inner or outer confidentiality rings were able to view redacted versions of confidential material.
• Permission settings on TrialView facilitated the designation of users into teams and specific roles, with each role aligned to their individual membership of the confidentiality rings.
• Special controls ensured that a user would only have access to the version of the document they were entitled to see.
• Evidence presentation was designed so that different users could see different versions of the same document simultaneously (based on the log in credentials).
• Version control facilitated consistency of pagination, structure and tabbing.
• Dynamic watermarking ensured that exports and bundles contained the correct confidentiality designation, ensuring that any shared document could be traced back to source.
• Exports and bundles of documents could also be set to align to the recipient’s confidentiality ring membership.

What were the results?

The additional confidentiality ring functionality significantly enhanced the useability of the database, minimising concerns around disclosure of confidential information to those without the necessary rights to view such information and complying with users’ confidentiality undertakings and the Tribunal’s confidentiality order. Having the different confidential variants in one workspace made working and updating the trial bundle easier.

Fieldfisher Director, Simon Yeung, commented on his experience with TrialView:

“TrialView has an intuitive interface and was straightforward to use. The support from the team at TrialView was very responsive, including the implementation of the confidentiality ring functionality.”

Fieldfisher is one of a leading number of visionary firms who recognise the efficiency gains from embracing innovation and technology at an early stage in a dispute.

Why not get in touch with one of our consultants to find out more?