Producing data is an often-overlooked portion of the discovery process – the recent Federal Court judgment in the Hamlan Homes case illustrated its importance and value. Back in 2023, our team highlighted some of the issues raised in our article on redefining document production within Australia – but we further unpack this decision, and its implications for Australian production workflows, in our summary article below.

Hamlan Homes Case Overview

At a high level, Hamlan Homes Pty Ltd trading as Hamlan Homes and Geelong Homes v Levonix Homes Pty Ltd (No 3) [2025] FedCFamC2G 565 (17 April 2025) is about alleged copyright infringement relating to house designs.

However, this particular procedural decision focused on two key issues:

1. A request for reproduction of unredacted documents, and
2. A request for the respondents to re-produce documents in native format.

The first issue – regarding the redacted documents – was dismissed, with Manousaridis J determining the redacted material was not relevant to the dispute and not within scope of discovery.

The second issue – regarding the format of discovered documents – has wider-reaching impacts on how discovery is to be performed moving forward in matters before the Federal Court.

Summary of Key Facts

• Providing documents to their external lawyers who engaged an eDiscovery provider.
• The provider processed and converted all documents to stamped PDFs for ongoing hosting and review – the original (native) files were not hosted.
• The document list was also provided in PDF format – with metadata only for document ID, title, type and ‘attachments’.

The Applicants then:

• Requested the Respondents provide the document list in Excel format with a metadata load file, as key metadata was missing – including dates, authors, email sender and recipient, and whether files were emails or attachments.
• Once the data was loaded into their database, they found additional issues with the discovery:
  • Redactions were undertaken without a reason provided (e.g. privilege).
  • There were incomplete sets of documents (e.g. part of a set of plans which should have been kept together).
  • Documents were non-searchable.
  • There were no host identifiers to group document families together in the database.
• The Applicants requested that the Respondents reproduce in native format (including all metadata), which would alleviate the issues encountered.

The Respondents argued that having to do so would be an unreasonable and administrative burden – noting they had incurred significant fees in converting documents to PDFs and discovery generally.

The Decision

Manousaridis J rejected the Respondent’s argument and ordered they reproduce their discovery in native format.

In making his determination, Manousaridis J looked to the definition of a ‘document’ and the nature of electronically stored information (ESI) under the current law – particularly that metadata is already recognised as comprising part of a ‘document’. This meant the metadata would be just as discoverable as the document itself. His Honour noted that producing a native file – i.e. a file in its original format – would be the most effective means of also producing the corresponding file metadata.

Manousaridis J also noted the differences between a ‘Native Format Electronic Document’ and a ‘Derivative Electronic Document’ – in this case the ‘Derivative’ being the converted stamped PDFs. He flagged that converting files into derivative format often means information embedded in the native is lost in the conversion process (e.g. metadata, comments and changes in a Word document).

Legal Implications

The biggest implication of this decision is that the court’s default position is now for parties to produce discovered documents in native format. Derivative formats (e.g. converted stamped PDFs) will only be acceptable where there is agreement or an order permitting them.

Courts will also expect that parties have a genuine and good faith negotiation for document exchange protocols covering the formats and expectations of how discovery should be provided between parties.

Should there be any claims for cost burdens – specifically relating to discovery – courts will also expect practical, evidence-based justification.

Key Takeaways

Australia has a history of utilising stamped PDFs in productions, as this was the format used within NuixDiscover (formerly Ringtail). However, this decision highlights the issues with this approach and subsequent court pushback.

If your process requires converting documents to stamped PDFs prior to review, this case demonstrates that you could be incurring unnecessary costs and potentially failing to comply with the discovery order – which may necessitate revisiting previous work.

It also underscores the importance of agreeing to discovery formats before incurring the costs in preparing documents. Getting the details right in an agreed protocol can be critical – not just for compliance with an order, but also for cost certainty.

Overall, it’s a lesson in thinking efficiently: review database platforms can search, filter and display native files directly. We can limit conversion to PDF for only the documents which will be presented in evidence – not the entirety of discovery.

Discovery requirements in Australia are evolving quickly. Reach out to our experts to learn how we can help streamline your workflows and safeguard compliance.