Question 1

What does "control" of electronic documents mean?

Accepted Answer

Under CPR 31.8 and PD 57AD, a document is within a party's control if the party has or had physical (or systems) possession of it, a right to possession, or a right to inspect or take copies. In electronic practice that reaches the client's tenancies and devices, data held by providers and agents on the client's behalf, group companies' documents where possession, rights or standing arrangements exist, and, through the structured-request mechanism, work material on custodians' personal devices and accounts. It is established by investigation (contracts, tenancy administration, actual practice), asserted in the DRD, and testable by the court.

Question 2

Do our parent's or subsidiary's documents count as ours?

Accepted Answer

Not automatically: share hold in g alone is not control (Lonrho). But they do count where your client administers the relevant systems (shared tenancies decide many cases), holds contractual rights to the documents, or benefits from an arrangement in fact under which they are available on request (North Shore; Pipia). Analyse it entity by entity, and expect your opponent's group to be probed on the same basis.

Question 3

Can we really be expected to deal with employees' personal Whats Apps?

Accepted Answer

Yes, where they were used for relevant work. The Court of Appeal in Phones 4U v EE endorsed exactly this machinery: the employer asks custodians, in agreed written terms, to make work-related material available for search under a protocol that protects private content. You are not seizing anyone's phone; you are making, and recording, a structured request, and a refusal becomes a fact the court can act on.

Question 4

The data is in the cloud, so is it the provider's, not ours?

Accepted Answer

No. Data inside your client's tenancy is within your client's control: the client administers it and has contractual rights to it, and the courts treat it exactly like on-premises data. What sits outside easy reach is some provider- side material (certain logs, post-retention remnants), which is a narrower question of contract and request, and one to ask early because provider windows are short.

Question 5

What if the foreign subsidiary refuses, or local law blocks transfer?

Accepted Answer

Take the steps the position allows and evidence everything: invoke the arrangements, make the request, take local advice on the restriction, propose managed alternatives (in-country processing and review, targeted extraction, transfer mechanisms), and put any genuine impediment before the English court with evidence. Courts distinguish sharply between parties who engaged with the problem and parties who deployed it.

Question 6

Does control end when we no longer hold the document?

Accepted Answer

The duty catches documents that are or were in control: documents no longer held must still be identified in the disclosure exercise, with their fate stated. That is one more reason the control schedule records history (what was held, when, what happened to it) and not just the current position. cflab. u k · e-disc ove r y. u k ©2026 Computer Forensics Lab Ltd ·cflab.uk ·e-discovery.uk ·info@cflab.uk ·+44 (0)20 7164 6915 Page 20 of 23

Control Of Electronic Documents What Lawyers Need To Investigate