English High Court Approves The Use Of Predictive Coding

The English High Court decision of Master Matthews (February 16, 2016) approved the use of predictive coding to satisfy the disclosure requirement under the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) Part 31. See Pyrrho Investments Ltd v. MWB Property Ltd [2016] EWHC 256 (Ch). This marks the first case where an English court has discussed in detail the use of predictive coding.

The facts of the case are as follows: Pyrrho Investments Limited and MWB Business Exchange Limited brought a breach of shareholder’s fiduciary duty cause of action against five defendants. On February 2, 2016, the parties attended a hearing concerning their obligations for electronic disclosure of a large volume of documents on back-up tapes (originally estimated to be more than 17.6 million, but later reduced to 3.1 million by process of electronic de-duplication).