Delaware Court of Chancery Adopts ESI Preservation Guidelines
Following the lead of other state courts, Delaware’s Court of Chancery — known for handling of some of the nation’s most complex corporate matters — has adopted guidelines for the preservation of electronically stored information (“ESI”). The guidelines reference counsel’s “common law duty to their clients and the Court” to preserve ESI, noting that a “party to litigation must take reasonable steps to preserve information, including ESI, that is potentially relevant to the litigation and that is within the party’s possession, custody or control.” At a minimum, this means that “parties and their counsel must develop and oversee a preservation process,” including the dissemination of a litigation hold notice.