ONEMATA CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. ASHFAQ RAHMAN and SABIRA AREFIN, Defendants, v. WILLIAM SMITH and ENSCICON ACQUISITIONS II, LLC, Third-Party Defendants CASE NO. 20-62002-CIV-DIMITROULEAS/SNOW United States District Court, S.D. Florida Entered on FLSD Docket June 14, 2021 Counsel Riley W. Cirulnick, Rice Pugatch Robinson & Schiller, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, FL, Anthony Leffert, Pro Hac Vice, Samuel G. John, Pro Hac Vice, Robinson Waters & O'Dorisio, P.C., Denver, CO, Jackson Alexander Pellingra, Kenneth Louis Minerley, Minerley Fein, P.A., Boca Raton, FL, for Plaintiff. Harry Winderman, Boca Raton, FL, Peter Theodore Mavrick, Peter T. Mavrick PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Jacob Monroe Resnick, Jordan David Utanski, Mavrick Law Firm, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Defendant Ashfaq Rahman. Harry Winderman, Boca Raton, FL, for Defendant Sabira Arefin. Riley W. Cirulnick, Rice Pugatch Robinson & Schiller, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, FL, Jackson Alexander Pellingra, Kenneth Louis Minerley, Minerley Fein, P.A., Boca Raton, FL, for Third-Party Defendants. Snow, Lurana S., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER ON DISCOVERY MOTIONS *1 This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff's and Third-Party Defendants’ Motion for Protective Order Limiting Deposition Topics and Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Responses to Third Request for Production. (ECF Nos. 81, 91) The Honorable William P. Dimitrouleas, United States District Judge, has referred all discovery matters in this case to the undersigned United States Magistrate Judge. (ECF No. 40) The parties were ordered to meaningfully confer on these issues but were unable to resolve the disputes herein without court intervention. The Motions are now ripe for review. DISCUSSION Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants seek a protective order limiting the topics in Defendant Ashfaq Rahman's 30(b)(6) notices of deposition arguing that they are objectionable, based on overbreadth of specific topics and for excessive number of topics. Defendant's notice for the deposition of Plaintiff's corporate representative identifies 51 topics that the corporate representative(s) is expected to be prepared to testify about. Defendant's notice for the deposition of Third-Party Defendant's corporate representative identifies 18 topics. A corporation responding to a deposition notice under Rule 30(b)(6) “has an affirmative duty to provide a witness who is able to provide binding answers on behalf of the corporation.” QBE Ins. Corp. v. Jorda Enterprises, Inc., 277 F.R.D. 676, 688 (S.D. Fla. 2012). According to Rule 26(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable. Relevance under Rule 26(b)(1) is construed broadly, but is not without limits. Discovery must not only be relevant to the claims and defenses in the case, but also must be “proportional to the needs of the case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The determination of what is relevant for discovery purposes depends on the parties’ claims and defenses. Further, the Rules of Civil Procedure shall be “construed, administered, and employed by the court and the parties to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 1. Having reviewed the areas of inquiry, the Court finds that they are designed and intended to notify the parties of the examination topics to enable them to provide a competent witness capable of testifying on all material matters. This type of detail prevents the deponent from claiming surprise and places all parties on notice as to the areas of inquiry. Under Rule 30(b)(6), the court must balance a corporation's desire to designate any person(s) it chooses to testify on the corporation's behalf with the examining party's desire to obtain necessary information about the lawsuit. QBE Ins. Corp., 277 F.R.D. at 688. The party seeking to depose a private corporation must describe the matters for examination with reasonable particularity. Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6). *2 The Court finds that each area of inquiry relate to the allegations of the pleadings and, in contrast to the moving parties’ assertion, is not for purposes of harassment. The areas of inquiry are reasonable and proportionate to the needs of this case based on the number of claims, number of allegations, number of affirmative defenses, number of parties, amount in controversy, and the number of documents exchanged. This is a multi-million dollar business sale with five separate parties. The detailed notices enable the corporate representatives to adequately prepare themselves. If one deponent is unable to address the areas of inquiry, the designating party has a duty to designate more than one deponent if necessary to respond to questions on all relevant areas of inquiry listed in the notices. The corporation “must perform a reasonable inquiry for information that is reasonably available to it.” Id. at 689. With regard to Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Responses to its Third Request for Production from Defendant Rahman, Plaintiff sought discovery of communications and documents exchanged between Plaintiff's and Defendant's customers and vendors. Plaintiff's Second Amended Verified Complaint alleges that Defendant Rahman tortiously interfered with Plaintiff's contractual relations by making false, disparaging, and defamatory statements about Plaintiff. Based on this claim, Plaintiff asserts its request for this discovery is relevant. Defendant refused to provide any responsive documents. The undersigned finds that the documents and information exchanged between Defendant and Plaintiff's customers and vendors are directly relevant to its claims that Defendant tortiously interfered with Plaintiff's contractual relations. It cannot be said that it is “clear that the information sought has no possible bearing on the claims and defenses of the parties or otherwise on the subject matter of the action.” Milinazzo v. State Farm Ins., Co., 247 F.R.D. 691, 695 (S.D. Fla. 2007). Rule 34 explicitly requires the responding party to provide items “in the responding party's possession, custody, or control.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1). Defendant's argument that it has emails or documents but doesn't have the authority to produce them because he does not “control” ..“any [ ] emails received or sent by” others and that “he does not have authority to produce documents” he has in his possession is meritless. (ECF No. 107 at 3) Additionally, Defendant misstates Plaintiff's allegations regarding its tortious interference claims, asserting that Plaintiff alleges the conduct occurred after the lawsuit commenced but, in fact, Plaintiff states that it became aware of some of this conduct after the lawsuit commenced. (ECF No. 101 at 3; ECF No. 71 at ¶15) (“After the filing of this litigation, Onemata has determined that Defendant Ashfaq Rahman has tortiously interfered with the contracts and contract relations between Onemata and one or more of its customers. This tortious interference has included making false, disparaging, and defamatory remarks regarding Onemata, its personnel, and its data and services.” Second Amended Verified Complaint, ECF No. 71 at 4-5, ¶15) This allegation does not suggest that all of the allegedly tortious conduct occurred after the commencement of the lawsuit. Just because Defendant repeatedly misstates Plaintiff's position does not make it so. Moreover, this information is relevant and discoverable either way. Accordingly, the Court finds that pre-litigation communications with Plaintiff's customers and any untruthful statements made about Plaintiff are directly relevant to the claims asserted and a two year time period has not been shown to be excessive. CONCLUSION Having carefully considered the Motions, the Responses, the Replies, and Sur-reply thereto, the court file and applicable law, it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that: (1) Plaintiff's and Third-Party Defendants’ Motion for Protective Order Limiting Deposition Topics (ECF No. 81) is DENIED; and *3 (2) Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Responses to Third Request for Production is GRANTED. (ECF No. 91). Accordingly, Defendant shall provide all responsive, non-privileged documents no later than June 18, 2021, or on a mutually agreed upon date. A privilege log shall be provided on the same date with regard to any documents withheld on the basis of privilege. DONE AND ORDERED in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this 14th day of June, 2021.