Kearney, Mark A., United States District Judge
Plaintiff moved to compel production of defendants' passcodes for their
work-issued smartphones. Plaintiff argued defendants were corporate
custodians in possession of corporate records, and as such, could not assert
their Fifth Amendment privilege in refusing to disclose their
passcodes. Defendants disagreed and argued providing the passcodes to their phones was
“testimonial” in nature and violated the Fifth Amendment.The court found defendants' confidential passcodes were personal in nature, and since the plaintiff was not seeking business records but defendants' personal thought processes, defendants may properly invoke their Fifth Amendment privlege to avoid production of the passcodes. Accordingly, the court denied denied plaintiff's motion to compel.
v.
BONAN HUANG, et al
Counsel
David L. Axelrod, Christopher Reynolds Kelly, G. Jeffrey Boujoukos, U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiff.Gregory Morvillo, Eugene Ingoglia, Morvillo LLP, New York, NY, Mark Billion, Billion Law, Philadelphia, PA, Jason Somensatto, Morvillo LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendants.