Discovery: Star Direct Telecom Inc. v. Global Crossing Bandwidth Inc.

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U.S. District Court, Western District of New York

Discovery

Contested Issues

Star Direct Telecom Inc. v. Global Crossing Bandwidth Inc.
05-CV-6734
Judge Payson

Background: Plaintiffs United States Telesis Inc. and Star Direct Telecom Inc. have brought this action against defendant Global Crossing Bandwidth Inc. alleging breach of contract claims, claims under Sections 201 and 202 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. §§ 201 and 202, and various tort claims. The three companies provided telecommunication services to other companies and consumers. The plaintiffs assert, among other claims, that Global Crossing breached agreements with them by restricting and thereafter terminating the plaintiffs’ telecommunications services to the United Kingdom and by billing them for improper charges. Global Crossing has filed counterclaims against plaintiffs arising from their failure to pay Global Crossing the amounts it billed them under the agreements, including monthly minimum usage charges.
The latest dispute in this case relates to U.S. Telesis’s claim that Global Crossing has withheld relevant internal emails from the 2004 period regarding the Concurrence Agreement. The Concurrence Agreement provided that Star Direct’s account was to be combined with U.S. Telesis’s account to allow U.S. Telesis to benefit from a more favorable call rate that Star Direct had negotiated with Global Crossing. Before the Concurrence Agreement was negotiated, however, each plaintiff had executed a separate carrier services agreement with Global Crossing that required each company to pay a “minimum monthly usage commitment” charge the Concurrence Agreement, Global Crossing continued to bill each plaintiff for the separate MMUCs. 
The plaintiffs contend that this practice constituted a breach of the Concurrence Agreement because, in their view, the Concurrence Agreement relieved them of the obligation to meet two MMUCs. Global Crossing asserts that it was plaintiffs who breached their agreements by failing to pay the bills because the Concurrence Agreement did not extinguish or modify the plaintiffs’ MMUCs obligations under the earlier carrier services agreements.
Currently pending before the Court is U.S. Telesis’s motion to compel Global Crossing to supplement its disclosure under Rule 26(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by providing internal emails from 2004 relating to an agreement executed by the parties in April 2004 known as the “Concurrence Agreement.”

Ruling: The court grants the motion. Following Judge Telesca’s decision, the Concurrence Agreement’s effect, if any, on the parties’ minimum monthly usage requirements remains a contested issue. Any internal emails concerning that issue, as well as any other open issues under the Concurrence Agreement, remain relevant to the claims, according to the court.

David J. Edwards and Philip G. Spellane of Harris Beach LLP for the plaintiffs; Eric A. Linden of Jaffe, Raitt, Heuer & Weiss PC and Michael J. Shortley III of Global Crossing North America Inc. for the defendant