Effective November 5, 2020, the Business Court amended its procedure for litigants seeking designation to the Business Court for mandatory complex business cases.  Of significance, the Court changed Sections II(b)(i) and (ii), which address the specifications for providing a Notice of Designation (“NOD”) to the Court.

Section II(b)(i) requires the designating party to provide the Court with a file-stamped copy of the NOD to assist the Court in ascertaining the NOD’s timeliness pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-45.4(d).  Section II(b)(ii) requires the designating party to try to send the NOD and all attachments in a single email by use of a zip file or a LiquidFiles file-sharing service.  Of practical note, LiquidFiles is now the only file-sharing site permissible for use by the Administrative Office of Courts.  Accordingly, court personnel will be blocked from accessing or opening files from other file-sharing sites.  Counsel and litigants, therefore, should be mindful of this change if they generally use other file-sharing sites.

The new Designation Procedure, as well as other special information and procedures for the Business Court, is available here.  Additionally, the Business Court provides the public with a Business Court FAQs section that addresses other commonly-asked designation questions.

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