*1 This matter is before the Court upon Plaintiffs’ second motion to compel discovery. (Docket Entry 92.) For the reasons stated herein, the Court will grant Plaintiffs’ motion to the extent described below.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs filed this antitrust action against Defendants on October 18, 2019. (See generally Compl., Docket Entry 1.) In their complaint, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants are liable for violations of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, unfair and deceptive trade practices pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1, and unjust enrichment under North Carolina common law. (Id. ¶ 4.) Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants have engaged in unlawful bid rigging. (Id. ¶ 38.)

An initial pretrial conference hearing was held in this matter on May 20, 2020. (Minute Entry dated 5/20/2020.) At that time, the Court stayed discovery pending a ruling on Plaintiffs’ motion to for class certification. (Text Order dated 5/21/2020.) The Court subsequently denied Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification without prejudice to renewal after discovery. (Docket Entry 70.) In that same Order, the Court (1) lifted the stay of discovery, (2) allowed Plaintiffs to immediately serve written discovery on Defendants directed at class certification issues, and (3) ordered that the parties submit a revised Joint Rule 26(f) report covering discovery on class certification issues and on the merits. (Id. at 6.)

The parties thereafter submitted their Joint Rule 26(f) report (Docket Entry 72), which the Court approved without modification. (Docket Entry 73.) Pursuant to the Joint Report, the date for completion of all discovery will be seven months from the Court's Order in response to Plaintiffs’ renewed motion for class certification, which Plaintiffs filed on October 23, 2020. (Docket Entry 72 at 4; Docket Entry 86.) On September 9, 2020, Plaintiffs filed a first motion to compel discovery, which the Court granted. (Docket Entries 76, 97.) On November 6, 2020, Plaintiffs filed a second motion to compel, which is now before the Court. (Docket Entry 92.) Defendants responded in opposition (Docket Entry 102), and Plaintiffs filed a reply. (Docket Entry 105.) Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on December 10, 2020. (Docket Entry 104.)

II. DISCUSSION

Federal Rule 26 provides general rules regarding the scope of discovery:

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). District courts generally have broad discretion in managing discovery, including whether to grant or deny a motion to compel. Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon, Inc. v. Alpha of Virginia, Inc., 43 F.3d 922, 929 (4th Cir. 1995); Erdmann v. Preferred Research, Inc. of Georgia, 852 F.2d 788, 792 (4th Cir. 1988). “[T]he party or person resisting discovery, not the party moving to compel discovery, bears the burden of persuasion.” Carter Hughes v. Research Triangle Inst., No. 1:11CV546, 2014 WL 4384078, at *2 (M.D.N.C. Sept. 3, 2014) (unpublished) (citation omitted).

*2 Plaintiffs’ motion to compel seeks further response from Defendants to two interrogatories and one set of requests for production of documents. (See generally Docket Entry 92.) The Court addresses each in turn.

Plaintiffs’ Interrogatory No. 3 asks Defendants to “[i]dentify all Members of the Estates who, either in their own name or the name of an entity formed of which they were a manager or member, were the high bidder at any type of public foreclosure sale in the past four years in North Carolina ....” (Docket Entry 92 at 2.) In their response to Plaintiffs’ motion, Defendants argue that the information sought by this interrogatory is “unreasonably cumulative and duplicative because Plaintiff[s] will be receiving an electronic copy of all information contained in [Defendants’] database,” in addition to communications between the Estates managers, pursuant to the Court's Order in response to Plaintiffs’ first motion to compel. (Docket Entry 102 at 5.) Defendants contend that the database records and communications they are already producing contain complete accounts of the deals and transactions this interrogatory seeks. (Id.)

In their reply, Plaintiffs’ ask the Court to reject Defendants’ argument because “Defendants have made clear that relevant records are maintained outside of the Estates database.” (Docket Entry 105 at 4 (referencing Docket Entry 75 at 37-38 (statement on the record by counsel for Defendants Stephanie Roberts that Defendants “have internal records outside of this database of what they own and what they bought”) (emphasis added).) However, in response to a question by Plaintiffs’ counsel about records maintained outside of the database at a subsequent video conference hearing before the undersigned magistrate judge, Ms. Roberts stated that she did not “recall ever stating that there were other pockets of information [beyond those in the database]. [The Estates] is a virtual company, it only lives on the internet ... there are no paper files sitting anywhere.” (See Docket Entry dated 11/06/2020.)

Accordingly, if Defendants do possess any non-database records containing the information sought by Plaintiffs’ Interrogatory No. 3, these must be produced to Plaintiffs. If all the information Plaintiffs seek in this interrogatory is readily available to them in records that have already been (or will otherwise be) produced, Defendants need not transpose that information into a spreadsheet. To do so would be unnecessarily burdensome, especially in light of Plaintiffs’ counsel's statement on the record before the undersigned at a prior hearing that “if [Defendants] give us access to the database, then the burden is on us” to sort through it. (See id.) Therefore, Plaintiffs’ motion to compel as to Interrogatory No. 3 is granted to the extent that Defendants possess other responsive information apart from the database records and communications already being produced.

Plaintiffs’ Interrogatory No. 9 asks Defendants to “[i]dentify the 80 to 100 ‘equity share’ LLCs described in the Estates 30(b)(6) deposition” and for each LLC, to “identify (1) its managers and members, (2) every property in which the LLC has had an ownership interest, (3) all funds received by each LLC from any source, (4) profits or losses incurred by each LLC.” (Docket Entry 92 at 3.) According to Plaintiffs’ reply brief, the Parties conferred and counsel for Defendants agreed to provide the requested information for each LLC added as a defendant in Plaintiffs’ amended complaint. (Docket Entry 105 at 4.) Because the Parties appear to be cooperating on this request, the Court will not address it, except that if Defendants had withheld (or were planning to withhold) information about any equity share LLC because that information postdated the filing of Plaintiff's original complaint, that information shall now also be produced in light of the Court's discussion of the relevant time period for discovery below. (See Section D of this Order.)

*3 Plaintiffs’ Fourth Set of Requests for Production of Documents (“RFPs”) seek information regarding the abovementioned equity share LLCs. (See Ex. 2, Docket Entry 92-2.) Specifically, Plaintiffs seek operating agreements for the equity share LLCS, names and other information regarding their interest owners, and communications between the LLCs and Craig Brooksby. (Id.) In their initial response to these RFPs, Defendants provided no information whatsoever and instead asserted identical, non-particularized objections to each request. (See Ex. 2, Docket Entry 92-2.) Furthermore, Defendants failed to address this component of Plaintiffs’ motion to compel in their response brief. (See generally Docket Entry 102.) Without more from Defendants, the Court finds that they have not met their burden of establishing why such information regarding the equity share LLCs is not discoverable, particularly in light of the fact that these LLCs have now been added as defendants in this lawsuit. Accordingly, the Court will grant Plaintiffs’ motion to compel as to their Fourth Set of RFPs.

Finally, with regards to all discovery sought by Plaintiffs, Defendant appear to contend that the Court should limit its productions to documents created between January 1, 2016 and the filing of Plaintiffs’ original complaint on October 18, 2019, thus excluding the time from the initiation of the lawsuit to the present. (Docket Entry 102 at 6.) Defendants argue generally that producing documents from the last year would be burdensome and disproportionate to the needs of the litigation. (Id.) Plaintiffs, on the other hand, argue that Defendants should be required to produce responsive documents created between January 1, 2016 and the present. (See Docket Entry 105 at 5.) Plaintiffs state that they need documents from the last year because “[t]o the extent Defendants continue to engage in the alleged illegal bid-rigging scheme, the class continued to grow, and Plaintiffs are entitled to know, in part so that they may provide adequate notice to class members and also to determine whether final relief should entail a permanent injunction putting an end to the scheme.” (Id.) Plaintiffs cite the Parties’ ongoing obligation pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 to supplement their responses to interrogatories and requests for production. (Id. (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e)(1)).)

The Court agrees that documents created since the filing of Plaintiffs’ complaint may be relevant to their claims, the relief they seek, and their efforts to define class membership. The Court further finds that including the last year in the discovery period is proportional to the needs of the case given that Plaintiffs have alleged an ongoing bid-rigging scheme. (See Compl. ¶ 1.) As the party resisting discovery of documents from this time period, the Defendants bear the burden of establishing that such documents are not discoverable. See Carter Hughes, 2014 WL 4384078, at *2. Defendants’ cursory, unparticularized arguments about the burden of producing such documents are not persuasive. See Kinetic Concepts, Inc. v. ConvaTec Inc., 268 F.R.D. 226, 249 (M.D.N.C. 2010) (“A party asserting undue burden must present an affidavit or other evidentiary proof of the time or expense involved in responding to the discovery request.”) Defendants have not attached affidavits or evidentiary proof describing the burden of responding to Plaintiffs’ request. (See Docket Entry 102 at 6 (stating briefly that The Estates, LLC, is a “small operation” with limited time and resources for responding to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests.) Without more from Defendants, it is not apparent that the burden of producing such discovery would outweigh its likely benefit. Therefore, Defendants will be ordered to supplement their discovery productions with documents created between the filing of Plaintiffs’ original complaint and the present and shall continue to supplement their responses as required by Rule 26.

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated herein, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ motion to compel (Docket Entry 92) is GRANTED to the extent described above.

*4 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants shall supplement any productions they have made thus far with responsive documents created between the filing of Plaintiffs’ original complaint on October 18, 2019 and the date of this Order.

Defendants shall supplement their responses as stated herein no later than thirty (30) days from the date of this Order.