Deloitte: 75% of GCC Legal Practitioners Expect an Increase in eDiscovery Services in 2015

13 May, 2015 - Deloitte recently conducted a survey to highlight the importance of eDiscovery services in the Middle East. eDiscovery technology allows the electronic discovery of data to help companies and legal counsel find critical electronic evidence in cases of disputes, investigations or regulatory requests.

The survey, led by Deloitte’s Financial Advisory Practice in the Middle East, addressed six hundred legal practitioners in law firms, and corporations in the following GCC countries: United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. 

“eDiscovery services have recently received significant attention in the GCC region where arbitration, corporate investigation and regulatory matters account for the majority of electronic document review,” said Wendy Robinson, Deloitte leader of eDiscovery services in the Middle East.

The survey revealed that three out of four legal practitioners polled expect that the need for electronic document review in the GCC region will increase, as the sensitivity of data and the desire to keep information locally, strongly influences respondents to choose to conduct and host document reviews in the region.
Other survey findings include:

•    70 percent of respondents have used hosted eDiscovery technology for a review within the past 3 years
•    95 percent of respondents view hard copy documents as still comprising the majority of evidence collected to support a case. Email server information was the next most likely evidence item to be involved.
•    75 percent of respondents have been involved in at least one case in the GCC in the last 3 years which required electronic document review

“The market for eDiscovery expertise and technology within the region is clearly growing, and the survey has provided us with some clear insight into some of the key drivers and challenges ahead for GCC firms and multinationals operating in the region,” concludes Robinson.