The New Zealand Commerce Commission and Serious Fraud Office (SFO) have recently invested in Relativity as their preferred eDiscovery solution.
About Relativity
Relativity is widely regarded as one of the leading eDiscovery software solution internationally, with nearly 14,000 organisations using Relativity in over 40 countries, totaling over 165,000 users. Relativity has over 800 employees, with more than 350 deployed in the engineering team to manage and develop the product further.
Greater efficiency
The investment in Relativity should help provide greater efficiency to how the Commerce Commission and SFO work.
The advanced features will help both organisations reduce inefficient manual processes, enabling them to manage larger data volumes and get to the facts quicker.
Relativity provides the Commerce Commission and SFO greater capability to analyse and interrogate evidence to help them manage their investigations. Both organisations now have access to the latest eDiscovery functionality, from email threading, conceptual searching through to technology assisted review.
Those that work with or against the Commerce Commission or SFO, should be on notice that both organisations now have the tools at their disposal to help them more effectively manage evidence in their investigations. Law firms and other organisations will need to ensure that they also have access to effective tools.
On-premise vs managed service
Both the Commerce Commission and SFO have invested in ‘on-premise’ instances of Relativity, which is the first ‘on-premise’ instances of Relativity deployment in New Zealand.
The ‘on-premise’ instance allows both organisations to perform all their eDiscovery requirements in the one system, whilst administering internally. This provides them with the ability to fix cost around the software, whilst reducing reliance on 3rd parties.
However, the managed service option may be more applicable for New Zealand firms, rather than running infrastructure internally.
Those without the budgets of the Commerce Commission and SFO to invest in Relativity internally, can access Relativity on a matter by matter basis – in a ‘pay as you go’ type model. This allows access to the technology, without having to make the investment in-house. Relativity is available through 10 hosting partners in the New Zealand and Australian market.
Relativity has been used by a number of New Zealand law firms for many years, with it being one of the leading options that I have used for the best part of 10 years with many different clients.
Maturing of the New Zealand eDiscovery landscape
It is positive to see New Zealand organisations starting to invest in leading eDiscovery solutions.
Many law firms are exploring eDiscovery software options, – with Relativity being just one of a number of great eDiscovery solutions available.
It will be interesting to see if other law firms also look to invest in eDiscovery products like Relativity. If history repeats, New Zealand law firms have often followed the software choice of regulators like the Commerce Commission.
