Declaration Of Helen J. Hodges In Support Of Lead Counsel's ...

professionals and experts, and attempted to maximize the amount of information covered, in part
because the fraud spanned years and involved hundreds of illicit transactions.
114. The detailed document production requests primarily concerned the banks’ Enronrelated
banking business, including alleged illicit transactions, trading in Enron securities, analysts,
and internal communications among banking professionals concerning their client Enron. The
document production requests were an important component of a massive, multi-pronged discovery
plan that also sought sworn statements, SEC testimony, interrogatory responses, requests for
admission, together with Lead Counsel’s independent investigation concerning the Enron fraud.
115. After the PSLRA discovery stay was lifted, and before depositions began in summer
2004, a significant portion of Lead Counsel’s time was devoted to securing the documents. Lead
Counsel entered into negotiations with all the defendants concerning the production of relevant paper
and electronic evidence. The communications ultimately spanned years of negotiations, meet-andconfers,
arguments, and law-and-motion practice to secure relevant evidence to prove Lead
Plaintiff’s case as trial.
116. Lead Counsel had to repeatedly negotiate with experienced defense counsel to secure
the relevant evidence, a process that took many months, and as discovery progressed, the demands
for evidence spanned years. On occasion Lead Counsel successfully negotiated for the production of
relevant evidence. Other times, negotiations failed, necessitating motions to compel responses or
answers from defendants.
117. Lead Counsel was successful in obtaining crucial evidence from defendants. Key
electronic and documentary evidence and communications, together with sworn testimony, was used
extensively during the oral depositions that began in summer 2004. Notably, because Lead Counsel
took the lead in establishing a document depository for the receipt, storage and retrieval of the
evidence, all parties to the litigation had access to and were able to search the depository for relevant
- 69 -