EU Data Privacy Agency Adopts Recommendations On Reconciling EU Data Privacy Requirements With U.S. Litigation Rules

In an effort to bridge the divide between European data protection laws and U.S. pre-trial discovery rules, an advisory body established under the European Data Privacy Directive adopted on February 11, 2009 a set of recommendations for dealing with "pre-trial discovery for cross-border civil litigation."

For years, multinational corporations with U.S. and European operations have found themselves squeezed between European laws that tightly control the retention and transfer of personal data and U.S. civil procedure rules that allow for broad pre-trial discovery in civil litigation. Compounding the problem, the concept of broad pre-trial discovery is antithetical to European litigation practice. Most European countries do not permit it at all, or only to a very limited degree. Even the U.K., which has a common law litigation model most similar to the U.S., does not provide nearly the breadth of pre-trial discovery that is routine in American litigation.