Oriole Mobility, Inc. Re: Response to Administrative Subpoena — Osprey Battery-Thermal Event Investigation Federal Transport Safety Office Dear [Agency Counsel]: Oriole Mobility, Inc. (“Oriole”) submits the following objections and responses to the administrative subpoena served in the above-referenced investigation. Oriole’s responses are made without waiving any objection, privilege, or work-product protection. None of these responses is a blanket assertion that any request is “overbroad, burdensome, vague, and privileged.” Instead, Oriole identifies the particular ground for each objection and proposes a concrete response or narrowing measure. Oriole will continue to preserve all potentially responsive sources while the parties meet and confer, and it will produce responsive nonprivileged material even where it objects to another portion of the same request. ## I. Objections and Responses to Requests 1 Through 6 ### Request 1 **Request:** All customer complaints concerning heat, smoke, fire, charging, batteries, or electrical odor for every Oriole vehicle from 2018 through 2026. **Objection:** Oriole objects to the request to the extent it demands complaints for every Oriole vehicle line. The investigation concerns three battery-thermal events involving the Osprey electric delivery van. The Osprey entered commercial service on January 1, 2022, and the four other Oriole vehicle lines use different battery systems. Collecting and reviewing all non-Osprey customer complaints from 2018 through 2026 would be grossly disproportionate to the likely relevance of those complaints to the Osprey battery-thermal investigation. **Response and Proposed Narrowing:** Oriole will produce all responsive Osprey customer complaints concerning heat, smoke, fire, charging, batteries, or electrical odor for the period January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2026, as maintained in Oriole’s customer-complaint and warranty databases. Oriole will not at this time search or produce complaints for the other vehicle lines, but will reconsider if the Office identifies a specific basis to believe those complaints involve substantially similar battery systems, cells, modules, or charging architecture. Oriole is still investigating records that may be held by independent regional resellers. Oriole does not state that those reseller ticketing records are outside its possession, custody, or control; that determination is not complete. Oriole is conducting a reasonable inquiry into: - which regional resellers sold Osprey vans; - whether those resellers maintain Osprey customer complaints in their own ticketing systems; - whether Oriole has a contractual or practical right to obtain those complaints; and - whether any reseller complaint data is already accessible to Oriole. Oriole will produce reseller complaints if the inquiry shows that they are within Oriole’s possession, custody, or control, and it will supplement this response after completing that inquiry. Oriole has also requested that its regional resellers preserve Osprey complaint records while this issue is being resolved. **Phased Production:** Oriole will produce its own Osprey customer-complaint data within 14 days of this response. It will produce any reseller complaints identified as within its control within 30 days after completing the control inquiry, or on a schedule agreed at the meet-and-confer. --- ### Request 2 **Request:** All company communications containing any form of the words “battery,” “heat,” “smoke,” “fire,” or “charge,” without custodian or date limitation. **Objection:** Oriole objects to this request as written because it has no custodian or date limitation and uses generic search terms that are not reasonably targeted to the investigation. A preliminary collection returned approximately 18 million messages, including cafeteria notices about fire drills and routine charging reminders. Requiring Oriole to collect and review all of those messages would impose a burden grossly disproportionate to their likely relevance to the three Osprey battery-thermal events. **Response and Proposed Narrowing:** Oriole will produce responsive nonprivileged communications concerning Osprey battery safety and the events under investigation, using the following concrete limits: - **Date range:** January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2026. This covers Osprey design, development, testing, commercial launch, and the investigation period. - **Initial custodians:** Oriole identifies the following five initial custodians, by current role: 1. Director of Battery Engineering 2. Chief Engineer, Osprey Program 3. Director of Product Safety and Compliance 4. Manager, Quality and Customer Complaints 5. Director, Field Technical Support Oriole will provide the names of the current officeholders to the Office and will consider additional custodians after the initial search and validation if the Office identifies a specific need. - **Search terms:** Oriole proposes to search the custodians’ corporate email and enterprise messaging platforms using terms such as: - `("Osprey" AND ("battery" OR "thermal" OR "heat" OR "smoke" OR "fire" OR "venting" OR "failure" OR "complaint" OR "recall" OR "incident" OR "safety"))` - `(("battery" OR "batteries") AND ("thermal" OR "heat" OR "smoke" OR "fire" OR "venting" OR "failure" OR "recall" OR "complaint" OR "incident" OR "safety"))` - `"thermal event" OR "thermal runaway" OR "battery fire" OR "battery smoke" OR "battery odor"` - Event-specific identifiers for the three thermal events, to be used once the matter numbers or vehicle identifiers are confirmed. Oriole will not use “fire” or “charge” as standalone terms because they return large volumes of irrelevant material. It will use “charge” only in targeted combinations such as “charging system,” “charger,” “overcharge,” or “state of charge” where the context is battery-related. - **Validation and phased review:** Oriole will run the proposed terms against the initial custodians and provide the Office with hit counts. If the result set is still large, Oriole will propose a sample-based review protocol and will not manually review the entire 18-million-message universe unless the Office makes a further showing of relevance and proportionality. **Privilege:** Oriole will produce nonprivileged communications and will withhold or redact attorney-client privileged or work-product material as described in Attachment A. Materials will not be treated as privileged merely because a lawyer was copied. --- ### Request 3 **Request:** All communications between Oriole and any lawyer concerning battery safety, product compliance, reporting duties, recalls, customer complaints, or the three events. **Objection:** Oriole objects to this request to the extent it seeks attorney-client privileged communications and attorney work product. The privilege protects confidential legal advice and requests for legal advice. It does not protect underlying incident facts, ordinary engineering data, final business decisions, or documents merely copied to counsel. **Response and Proposed Narrowing:** Oriole will produce nonprivileged communications between Oriole personnel and lawyers concerning the Osprey battery system, the three events, and related safety/compliance/reporting issues. Oriole will withhold only those communications or portions of communications that contain privileged legal advice or legal strategy, and it will provide a privilege log for all withheld materials. For mixed documents—such as an email that transmits engineering photographs or test data to counsel while also requesting legal advice—Oriole will: - produce the underlying nonprivileged factual material, including attachments and engineering data; - redact only the portions that contain legal advice or legal strategy; and - log the redacted or withheld portion as described in Attachment A. Oriole will not assert privilege over a document merely because outside counsel was included on the communication, merely because a lawyer received it, or merely because it relates to a matter on which legal advice was later sought. **Phased Production:** Oriole will produce the nonprivileged communications from the five custodians’ files and the Osprey legal-department files on a rolling basis, beginning within 21 days of this response, with a privilege log for any withheld communications produced according to Attachment A. --- ### Request 4 **Request:** All board and safety-committee materials concerning the Osprey battery system and the three events. **Objection:** Oriole does not object to producing nonprivileged board and safety-committee materials that are relevant to the Osprey battery system and the events. Oriole objects only to the extent the request would require production of attorney-client privileged communications or work product contained in board or safety-committee materials. **Response and Proposed Narrowing:** Oriole will produce board and safety-committee minutes, agendas, presentations, and attachments concerning the Osprey battery system and the three events, excluding or redacting portions that contain privileged legal advice or legal strategy. The following will not be withheld merely because they appear in board materials: - final business decisions; - underlying engineering facts; - ordinary safety data; - attachments containing factual or technical material; and - portions reflecting business discussions, even if counsel was present. If a mixed legal-business presentation contains both business recommendations and legal advice, Oriole will produce the business portions and redact the privileged portions, with a log identifying each redaction. If a privileged attachment or outside-counsel memorandum is withheld, Oriole will log it separately. **Timing:** Oriole will produce the nonprivileged board and safety-committee materials within 21 days of this response. --- ### Request 5 **Request:** The complete incident database, test results, source data, photographs, and metadata for the three events and substantially similar Osprey events. **Objection:** Oriole objects to the phrase “substantially similar Osprey events” as vague to the extent it could be read to include unrelated vehicle incidents. Oriole also objects to the request if “complete incident database” means the entire corporate incident database for all vehicle lines, rather than the Osprey battery-related incidents relevant to this investigation. **Response and Proposed Narrowing:** Oriole will produce the following within eight days: - complete incident-database records for the three identified thermal events; - complete incident-database records for all Osprey incidents involving heat, smoke, fire, venting, thermal runaway, or cell/battery failure, regardless of whether they were formally designated as “thermal events”; - all Osprey battery-system test results, engineering source data, photographs, and metadata related to those events and incidents; and - a native-file or load-file extract that preserves the available metadata. For purposes of this response, Oriole proposes that “substantially similar Osprey events” means any Osprey incident reported to or recorded by Oriole involving heat, smoke, fire, venting, thermal runaway, or cell/battery failure. If the Office seeks the entire incident database for all Oriole vehicle lines and all incident types, Oriole will meet and confer before undertaking that production because the relevance of unrelated incidents has not been shown. **Privilege:** The incident database and engineering repository contain ordinary-course engineering data. That data is not privileged merely because it later became relevant to litigation or was provided to counsel. Oriole will produce the underlying data and will not withhold it based on a communication with counsel. --- ### Request 6 **Request:** All reports by Emberline Engineering concerning Osprey batteries. **Objection:** Oriole objects to the request to the extent it seeks reports prepared after the second thermal event under a confidential engagement by outside counsel for the purpose of analyzing litigation and enforcement risk. Those materials are attorney work product and may also contain attorney-client privileged communications. **Response and Proposed Narrowing:** Oriole will produce all Emberline Engineering reports prepared under the standing engineering contract, including the annual battery-validation reports from 2020 through 2024. Those reports were prepared in the ordinary course of product testing and validation, not primarily because of anticipated litigation or enforcement, and they are not protected by work product merely because litigation later arose. Oriole will withhold the separate Emberline report or reports prepared under the confidential engagement initiated by outside counsel after the second thermal event, to the extent they were prepared primarily because of anticipated litigation or enforcement. Oriole will provide a privilege log for any withheld Emberline report that identifies the date, author, recipients, document type, subject matter, and the specific privilege asserted. If any Emberline report contains both ordinary engineering data and privileged litigation-risk analysis, Oriole will produce a redacted version of the ordinary engineering data where feasible and log the redacted privileged portion. **Timing:** Oriole will produce the nonprivileged Emberline reports within 14 days of this response. --- ## II. Preservation and Control Statement While objections and negotiations proceed, Oriole will preserve all potentially responsive sources in its possession, custody, or control, including: - Osprey engineering and test data; - customer complaint and warranty databases; - incident databases; - board and safety-committee materials; - legal and investigation files; - Emberline reports and underlying data; and - any reseller complaint data that Oriole can access or obtain through contractual or practical means. Oriole is conducting a reasonable inquiry into its contractual and practical rights to obtain records held by regional resellers. It has not yet concluded that those records are outside its control, and it will supplement this response when that inquiry is complete. --- ## III. Privilege Log and Clawback Protocol ### A. Privilege Log Oriole will produce a privilege log for all materials withheld in full or in part on the basis of attorney-client privilege or work-product protection. Oriole will not use categorical logging unless the Office agrees in writing after a meet-and-confer. The log will include the following fields for each withheld item or redaction: 1. **Request number** — the subpoena request to which the item responds. 2. **Document ID / Bates number** — unique control number, including the Bates range of any redaction. 3. **Date** — date the document was created or sent. 4. **Author / originator** — name and title. 5. **Recipients** — all known recipients, including cc and bcc, with names and titles where available. 6. **Document type** — email, letter, memorandum, meeting minutes, presentation, report, attachment, notes, or other. 7. **Subject matter** — a short, non-privileged description sufficient to identify the document without revealing legal advice. 8. **Privilege asserted** — attorney-client privilege, attorney work product, or both. 9. **Supporting facts** — a brief statement of facts supporting the privilege claim, such as “prepared by outside counsel at the request of in-house counsel for legal advice regarding the second thermal event” or “prepared primarily because of anticipated FTSO enforcement after the second thermal event.” The log will be provided in a searchable electronic format such as Excel or CSV. ### B. Mixed Documents and Attachments Oriole will treat each document and each attachment separately for privilege review. - If a document contains both privileged and nonprivileged content, Oriole will produce the nonprivileged content and redact only the privileged portions, unless the document is privileged in full. - If an email is privileged but its attachment is not, Oriole will log the email and produce the attachment. - If an email is not privileged but its attachment contains privileged legal advice, Oriole will produce the email and log the attachment. - A document is not privileged merely because it was attached to a privileged email or sent to counsel. - A document is not privileged merely because it was reviewed by counsel, copied to counsel, or discussed in a legal meeting. - Underlying facts, engineering data, test results, and final business decisions will be produced even if they also appear in a privileged document, where they are separately responsive. ### C. Redaction Log For any document produced with redactions, Oriole will provide a redaction log with the same fields as the privilege log and will identify the Bates range of each redaction and the privilege asserted. ### D. Timing Oriole will produce an initial privilege log with its first production or within 21 days of this response, whichever is earlier. Supplemental logs will be provided on a rolling basis no later than 14 days after each subsequent production batch. The final log will accompany the final production. ### E. Clawback for Inadvertent Production Oriole agrees to the nonwaiver and clawback agreement offered by the Office. Under that agreement: - If Oriole inadvertently produces attorney-client privileged or work-product material, Oriole may notify the Office in writing and request return or destruction of those materials. - The Office will not use the inadvertently produced material and will take reasonable steps to return or destroy it. - Inadvertent production will not constitute a waiver of privilege or work-product protection in this investigation or any other proceeding. - Oriole will take reasonable steps to identify and remediate any inadvertent production. This clawback protocol does not excuse unreasonable review or deliberate overproduction of privileged material. Oriole will conduct a reasonable, document-by-document privilege review of the materials it produces, and it will not use the clawback agreement as a substitute for that review. --- Oriole reserves the right to supplement and amend these objections and responses as its investigation continues, and it will continue to meet and confer with the Office in good faith on a proportional and phased approach to production. Respectfully submitted, Oriole Mobility, Inc. By: [Counsel]