Court Declines To Order Production of Defendant’s Client List and Corporate Tax Records

Posted: May 15, 2026 / Written by: Channing J. Turner, Ian Weiss, Thomas A. Kissane, Samuel L. Butt / Category Discovery/Disclosure

Court Declines To Order Production of Defendant’s Client List and Corporate Tax Records

On April 22, 2026, in Slice Wireless Services, LLC v. Yakubov, Index No. 656506/2017, Justice Robert R. Reed declined to require defendants to supplement their discovery responses and denied plaintiff’s requests for production of defendants’ client list and corporate tax records.

In this action alleging that defendants—former employees of plaintiff—had serviced plaintiff’s clients in violation of restrictive covenants, plaintiff sought post-deposition discovery including defendants’ entire client list from 2017 to 2023 and corporate tax records for the same period. Defendants had provided discovery through 2019—the date through which any restrictive covenants remained valid—and opposed broader disclosure as protected proprietary information and as failing to satisfy the standard for compelled production of tax records. The Court explained:

With respect to plaintiff’s demand for defendants’ entire client list from 2017 to 2023, the court declines to order the production of such sensitive information at this juncture. Client lists may be considered trade secrets and can constitute protected, proprietary information, subject to the protection of the court (Leo Silfen, Inc. v Cream, 29 NY2d 387, 392 [1972]). Further, there is no evidence before the court that defendants testified that a ‘list of the Made by Wifi Inc’s clients for 2017-2023’ even exists, given the nature of their business and the manner in which the parties undertook their work.

Regarding tax records, the court applied the rule that a party must establish the information sought is “indispensable to the litigation and unavailable from other sources,” and declined to order production of additional records because plaintiff had made no such showing.

Contact the Commercial Division Blog Committee at commercialdivisionblog@schlamstone.com if you or a client have questions concerning commercial discovery obligations and the scope of required disclosure.