We brought the news in early March that there was some movement in the court case between Diamond and numerous publishers. The various parties and Diamond met on February 26 and March 3-4 in an attempt to find a resolution, the nature of the claims and defenses, to arrange disclosures, and propose a discovery plan. On March 4, there was a filing hashing out the plan for discovery.

Discovery is the process where documents related to the case are handed over to the parties involved for them to go through as far as evidence. This can be emails, text messages, Slack messages, and can easily go into the millions of documents.

The issue is who owns the consigned goods that are still being held by Diamond. Zenescope, Action Lab Entertainment, Ablaze, American Mythology, Battle Quest Comics, Paizo, Living the Line, Herman & Geer Communications, and Green Ronin Publishing are all fighting to get their inventory back. Diamond wants to keep the inventory to be able to sell it off to pay creditors. JPMorgan Chase Bank wants Diamond to sell off the inventory so it can get paid back by Diamond. Sparkle Pop is involved because it has sold off some of the inventory when it wasn’t supposed to and currently is holding the physical product in a warehouse it controls.

While this has been ordered, there’s now multiple settlements making their way through the courts between Diamond, publishers, and Sparkle Pop (who is currently housing the consigned goods). One of those agreements is being litigated and the other was just announced. The one being litigated involves the publishers and this discovery timeline.

An updated timeline has been approved by the court:

• Discovery Requests. The Parties shall serve all additional document requests, interrogatories, and requests for admissions on or before October 1, 2026.
• Agree on ESI Search Terms. The Parties will make reasonable efforts to agree on ESI Search Terms on or before October 15, 2026.
• Substantial Document Production Completion Date. The Parties expect to have document production substantially completed by November 15, 2026.
• Fact Discovery Cut Off. The Parties have agreed that, except for Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures, all fact discovery in this case shall be initiated so that it will be completed on or before January 15, 2027. The Parties have agreed that they may take fact depositions at any time prior to the expiration of the fact discovery deadline.
• Privilege Logs. Privilege logs shall be produced in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure so as to be completed within five (5) business days of the related document production. Privileged communications occurring after June 15, 2025, need not be included on a privilege log.
• Expert Initial Disclosures. The identity of expert witness and subject matter of expected testimony, per Rule 26(a)(2)(A) and 26(a)(2)(C)(i), shall be disclosed on February 1, 2027. Any rebuttal experts, and subject matter of expected testimony, shall be disclosed on February 8, 2027.
• Expert Reports and Expert Discovery Cut Off. Expert reports and all other information required by Rule 26(a)(2)(B), along with any documents or information considered by the expert, shall be exchanged on March 1, 2027. Rebuttal expert reports and all other information required by Rule 26(a)(2)(B), along with any documents or information considered by the expert, shall be exchanged on March 15, 2027. All expert discovery shall be completed by April 15, 2027.

Based on all of those dates, we won’t see a court case before 2027.