Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-06582/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-06582-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 18:1836(b) - Civil Action to Protect Trade Secrets

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GENENTECH, INC.,

Plaintiff,

 v.

JHL BIOTECH, INC., et al.,

Defendants. /

No. C 18-06582 WHA

ORDER RE MODIFYING

OMNIBUS ORDER AND

PROTECTIVE ORDER

The criminal and civil defense counsel in the parallel proceedings have a legitimate need

to coordinate. Given that the criminal defense counsel should have access to material produced

in the civil action, the Court will MODIFY the protective order in the instant civil action (Dkt.

No. 51) to allow the criminal defense counsel (and those affiliated with those criminal defense

counsel, such as investigators) to have the same access to said material. Plaintiff Genentech,

Inc. argues that if the protective order is so modified, it should be granted the same permission

to receive any discovery the government provides to any individual defendant (Dkt. No. 209 at

6). That request is GRANTED.

 In turn, an analogous issue concerns whether Genentech may share the discovery it

obtains in the civil action with the government prosecutors. A prior order dated March 1

prohibited Genentech from “voluntarily provid[ing] to the government any evidence obtained

during the course of discovery in the instant civil action” and further ordered production of

documents located overseas to take place at those locations (Dkt. No. 128 at 42–43). This

Case 3:18-cv-06582-WHA Document 212 Filed 05/30/19 Page 1 of 4
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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precaution was ordered to prevent an abuse of the civil litigation, i.e., serving simply as a

mechanism for the government to more easily obtain documents from Taiwan (see id. at 42). 

Now, however, defendant JHL Biotech, Inc. wants to produce its documents in the United

States (and thus bring them within the jurisdiction of a subpoena). In light of this willingness,

this order therefore will MODIFY the prior order and approve the stipulated request by JHL and

Genentech to produce JHL documents in the United States (see Dkt. No. 197 at 1:22–24). 

The further issue concerns the prohibition on Genentech that it may not voluntarily turn

over documents obtained in civil discovery to the government. The prohibition ordered on

March 1 was squarely in line with the compromise Genentech willingly made in staving off a

full stay of the civil action (Dkt. No. 127 at 75:15–19, 76:18–20, 77:11–13): 

THE COURT: Will you agree that you will not turn anything over to

the government?

MR. PETERS: We’ll comply with any protective order that this Court

enters. Our objective is to litigate this case. 

. . . If there’s a protective order and we’re directed not

to provide any information to the government, we

won’t. They have their case; we have ours.

. . . [W]e will comply with any protective order of the

Court. And, and, and we just want this case to move

forward. And we submit it to the Court’s discretion.

Genentech now seeks to renege on this compromise and wants to voluntarily provide evidence

obtained during civil discovery to the government (Dkt. No. 197 at 1:25–2:2). It now asserts

that the protective order unlawfully restrains its right under the Crime Victim Right’s Act

(“CVRA”) “to confer with the attorney for the Government in the [criminal] case” (ibid. (citing

18 U.S.C. § 3771 (a)(5)). This order doubts this CVRA argument. Genentech wouldn’t have

the JHL documents in the first place but for the protective order and the denial of the stay. 

When a party in a civil action receives documents under a protective order that bars it from

disclosing to a third party, even the government, the receiving party should honor its word. 

Nevertheless, under In re Grand Jury Subpoenas, 627 F.3d 1143, 1144 (9th Cir. 2010),

where there is no evidence that the government has “engaged in any bad faith tactics” and the

parties “do not claim that the documents are privileged,” the documents produced in the United

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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States are subject to our court of appeals’ “per se rule that a grand jury subpoena takes

precedence over a civil protective order.” And, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure

17(c), the government may subpoena any witness to produce relevant material. So, if the

prosecutors want the JHL documents, it will have to proceed with subpoenas, which will be a

more orderly process anyway with a more thorough paper trail. In addition, to the extent the

documents are subpoenaed via grand jury, this process will provide a greater measure of

confidentiality of the material since the matter (and underlying material) will be subject to the

confidentiality rules governed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e). Therefore, this

order will not modify the prohibition against Genentech’s voluntary provision of evidence

obtained during civil discovery. Genentech’s objection is thus OVERRULED.

Furthermore, the individual defendants’ objections are OVERRULED. First, we now

have a different situation from that presented in defendants’ original motions to stay, namely,

JHL is now willing and agreeable to producing in the United States notwithstanding the risk

that the documents will be subject to subpoena. Second, while recognizing that the government

does not enjoy a Sixth Amendment right to counsel, there is still approximate symmetry in

fairness in allowing the government, as the ally of Genentech, to have more ready access to the

same records available to Genentech’s counsel, just as the civil and criminal counsel for the

individual defendants will now be allowed to have access. It seems two-faced for counsel for

the individual defendants to want to trade documents back and forth as between the civil and

criminal cases but to deny that relative convenience to Genentech and the government. 

The Court is sufficiently familiar with the evidence in the case to say that the allegations

by Genentech and the government of trade secret misappropriation are at least plausible. 

Allowing all counsel for plaintiffs, defendants, and the government in both the civil and

criminal proceedings to have access to the relevant documents at the heart of the controversy

will promote the search for truth, not impede it. Just as the criminal defense counsel will now

have access to the material produced in the civil discovery, the government will now have

access to the same materials in order to make its points against the individual defendants (even

if it must be done via subpoena). 

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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In sum, this order modifies the civil protective order (Dkt. No. 51) as follows:

2.8 Outside Counsel of Record: (1) attorneys who are not employees of a

party to this action but are retained to represent or advise a party to this

action and have appeared in this action on behalf of that party or are

affiliated with a law firm which has appeared in this action on behalf of that

party; or (2) who are retained to represent or advise that party and have

appeared in criminal action 3:18-cr-00527-WHA on behalf of that party or

are affiliated with a law firm which has appeared in criminal action

3:18-cr-00527-WHA on behalf of that party, which attorneys may use

Protected Materials only for purposes of defending that party in criminal

action 3:18-cr-00527-WHA.

Per JHL and Genentech’s stipulated request (Dkt. No. 197), this order further modifies the order

dated March 1 (Dkt. No. 128) by allowing document production to occur in the United States,

free from the limitations imposed by the language beginning on page 42, line 27, and ending on

page 43 at line 5. This order does not modify that order’s limitation prohibiting Genentech

from voluntarily providing evidence obtained during the instant civil action to the government

(found on page 42, lines 26–27), for the reasons stated above. 

The effectiveness of this order is STAYED for 14 CALENDAR DAYS from the date of this

order to allow any party to seek emergency relief from our court of appeals, failing which this

order shall become effective immediately. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 30, 2019. WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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