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Argued: July 8, 2010

Before: RAGGI, LYNCH, and CHIN, Circuit Judges.

Defendants-Appellants Raj Rajaratnam and Danielle Chiesi (hereinafter, “Appellants”) appeal from a district court (Jed S. Rakoff, Judge) discovery order compelling Appellants to disclose thousands of wiretapped conversations, originally provided to Appellants by the United States Attorney’s Office (“USAO”) in parallel criminal proceedings, to Plaintiff-Appellee Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) for use in this civil enforcement action against Appellants. We conclude that Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (“Title III”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522, does not absolutely prohibit the disclosure of wiretapped conversations from defendants in a civil enforcement proceeding to a civil enforcement agency where the defendants have received those conversations lawfully pursuant to Title III. However, in deciding whether and how much to disclose, a district court must balance the agency’s right of access to these materials in civil discovery against the privacy interests at stake. In the instant case, we conclude that although there is no interlocutory jurisdiction over an appeal from this order, a writ of mandamus is warranted, because the district court clearly exceeded its discretion in ordering disclosure of thousands of conversations involving hundreds of parties, prior to any ruling on the legality of the wiretaps and without limiting the disclosure to relevant conversations.

 
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