In re Pradaxa (Dabigatran Etexilate) Products Liability Litigation, 2013 WL 6486921 (S.D. Ill. Dec. 9, 2013).

In this pharmaceutical litigation, the plaintiffs’ steering committees requested sanctions stemming from the defendants’ inability to adequately preserve documents in anticipation of litigation. The court found that the defendants made discovery violations in multiple areas: they failed to timely identify key custodians, inadequately implemented a litigation hold on multiple involved employees, failed to preserve relevant text messages, and failed to give the vendor assisting in collection of data relevant materials and passwords. The court imposed sanctions for bad faith, including $931,000 in fines, plaintiffs’ costs and fees, and orders for production of documents and witnesses.